Jupiter Eclipsing
by amandamayclair
Summary: Jupiter Jones once dreamed of escaping her life of drudgery for the lure of excitement and wealth. Having received those in overwhelming abundance, she wouldn't mind dealing with a few simple troubles for a change. But her destiny isn't resting, and when it comes hunting, she must rise to the challenge that, for better or worse, can change a world, or a universe.
1. Chapter 1

****Jupiter Eclipsing is a sequel to Jupiter Opposing, which itself was written as the sequel to Jupiter Ascending.****

Starlight, struggling through Chicago's steady orange glow, flickers against the lens of a small, brass telescope. Centermost is the largest star, a planet, actually, flashing colors of reds and yellows, Jupiter, the king of planets.

Leaning back against the rough shingles of her cousin's home, Jupiter Jones gently rotates the telescope's lone shining eye aside, lifting her chin to face the stars herself. She pulls a dark jacket tighter against a growing chill, and wraps her arms loosely around her knees, while, beside her, Caine Wise leans forward, his arm alighting across her shoulders, then follows her gaze skyward. Both swathed in black on black military style cloth, their bodies meld with the dark sky, their pale faces held Cheshire cat-like against the Fall night.

 _'Technically speaking, I am Ruler of the Solar System, as if Queen of the Planet wasn't crazy enough, and, based on the word of a once enemy, and the auspices of a corps of space cops called the Aegis, I pretend I understand this is a truth. The real truth is that I think I've been damn lucky. I survived a plot to murder me hatched by my oldest genetic son, my youngest son to marry me, and then murder me, and my daughter, well, I know there must be something dark and hungry brooding behind that bright cheery smile of hers, which I expect I'll only discover once I give her a reason to bite. My destiny certainly proved bigger and badder than anything I could imagine. And, which would surely warm my aunt's , and I imagine I've barely glimpsed the beginning.'_

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Jupiter ducks her head slightly at Caine's murmured question.

"You aren't scared, are you?" she replies half joking, half mocking. She nudges him with her shoulder, eliciting a small smile from his otherwise stoic lips.

"Once it's done, there's no going back." Jupiter rolls that thought around for moment, knowing full well there is an alternative, one she detests, one that Cain himself rejected when he accepted a life at her side.

"I didn't know just how tiny my world really was until I met you. There's room to make it a little bigger." Caine nods, and hops lithely to his feet. His hand reaches back for Jupiter, and she accepts it warmly as he pulls her up to meet him. "This could go very badly," she warns with a rueful grin.

"And that would be different how?" He lifts a strand of her loose, dark hair from her face, and they meet in a gentle, deep kiss filled with as much trust as longing. A rustle, a lump expands beneath his jacket, and the tips of long feathers peer from beneath the heavy leather. After a long moment, Jupiter pulls away, laying her cheek against his chest, peering across the receding rows of average human homes, quiet homes, naively ignorant homes.

 _'The worst part is, I think I know what I have to do, and nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to like me much once I do it.'_


	2. Chapter 2

_A long finger swathed in dark jewels runs lightly across a row of gold limned sheaves, one row among a vast library that disappears in the distance. The finger belongs to a tall, austere figure, deep brown hair swept back neatly along the nape of his neck, swathed in fabric so dark a purple that could be mistaken for midnight black, the hem just brushing the glittering stone of the floor. The figure moves among the rows, dissatisfied yet undeterred. He halts at a woman's voice from behind._

 _"Back again?" The hand pauses, the head turns, and Balem Abrasax glances coldly over his shoulder. His dark eyes, dulled by the weight of his true years, flicker, almost guilty at being discovered, but he is Balem, First Prime Heir of the House of Abrasax, and he is never guilty, especially when he is. He almost shrugs as he turns away from the neat rows of sheaves. "What do you expect to find?" The woman steps closer, long dark hair cascading over her shoulders. Though her emerald green gown is richly embroidered with golden leaves, she wears it as if it were but an uncomfortable costume, for it appears as unkempt and disheveled as the woman herself. Her features are those of Jupiter Jones, pert nose, large brown eyes, yet this face is etched with the lines of a perpetual frown that no cellular replacement can erase._

 _"Answers."_

 _"And what is the question?" She asks mildly, but with an undercurrent of venom, a promise that she will defend her territory should anyone stray to deep._

 _"What happened? What happened to you? You, who ruled the universe, what drove you to this dark edge?"_

 _"The whole universe? Maybe half." A smile ghosts her lips, then vanishes. He motions abruptly to the sheaves behind him._

 _"You gene locked them against me."_

 _"These are my secrets to keep."_

 _"No, you always have some confident hiding in the wings. Who this time? Another tersis, destined to die? Still whoring yourself..." The sound of the back handed slap echoes between them. Seraphi Abrasax' eyes glitter dangerously. Only half her fury is born of Balem's insult, while a deeper anger smolders beneath. Balem's hand almost reaches his stinging cheek, but he stiffens his back and forces his errant hand to alight again at his side._

 _"You dare much, to come here in the flesh," Seraphi hisses._

 _"You could have me killed." He speaks with a flat, civil tone even as his feet move into a fighting stance._

 _"Yes, I could. Isn't that what we do?" His eyes flicker at her haunted tone. She takes a small step back, then launches a flurry of rapid kicks at Balem's knees, his stomach, his groin. Balem paries, then lunges forward with his own attack. His cloak floats behind him, and he swirls to block Seraphi's view._

 _"You've been lax with your training," she crows, dancing away his advances with her own dodges and blows. He makes one solid contact on her shoulder, and with a wicked grin she rolls the shoulder back, then flies into a back hand spring, the green gown flowing like water across Balem's face. She stands, breath coming hard and fast._

 _"And you've let yourself grow old again." He lunges again, and this time her parry drives his fist deep into the rows of sheaves. They fall, shattering like crystalline sparks._

 _"Your legacy is being destroyed," Balem yells with a rueful, gasping laugh. He runs a hand along the shelf, flinging more sheaves onto the stone floor. Seraphi's stunned look lasts mere seconds before she alights with something akin to glee._

 _"Years," she growls, and turns upon the sheaves herself, sending rows scattering and flying with a series of swift kicks. "Pointless," and she aims another kick, "empty," and again, "worthless" and again "years!" She surveys the glittering disaster of gold and glass. Her chest heaves. "My legacy is monstrous." She turns to Balem, including him in that legacy. His lips and eyes thin with disdain._

 _"I am what you made me."_

 _Seraphi nods slightly even as her shoulders slump. She turns away, and with a stone cold voice replies._ _"Be gone, before I have you escorted out."_

"Stop!" All motion stops. Another woman steps as if through a magic curtain into the room. Her dark hair is pulled up into a knot framed with a silver and gold cage. An intricate web of tiny pink pearls drip down her neck and across her shoulders. Her own gown is a Spring green fading to a deep indigo hem. Kalique Abrasax hugs her arms to herself while she surveys the frozen ledger. "I never knew such enmity had grown between them. Why are you viewing this? What can you possibly hope to gain?" She turns to the youthful man who leans with studied nonchalance near one of the marbled pillars. His deep blue tunic shimmers like fish scales to his knees, where the rich folds meet with his knee high, matte black boots.

"I find all information to be useful." Titus Abrasax' lips thin with a hint of a smile. "Don't you agree?"

Kalique taps her finger against her lower lip in thought. "You're lying." Her eyes flit to the image of Seraphi. "Mother always did say the best hiding place for lies was in plain sight." She affects a small shiver, then turns away. "I don't like remembering them like this."

"No, I prefer remembering Balem like this." He taps the node behind his ear, and the scene about them changes to a city ravaged by flames. Balem holds a stray bit of pipe against the woman's throat, only this is Jupiter Jones, Seraphi's recurrence, their mother, and never their mother.

"What is this?" Kalique's eyes widen at the fiery devastation as the city collapses all around them.

"Balem was so sure of his triumph and the return of his prized Earth that he had activated his personal log. And, well, it just kept recording." The smile crossing Titus face is as hard as his eyes.

"Stop. Stop!" she yells. the moment freezes, Jupiter's thumb deep within a wound upon Balem's thigh. "End log." The view fades, and it is only the two of them, each in their own world. Kalique on a stone balcony against a broad blue sky, Titus imprisoned within his delightfully appointed skiff. They face each other across the distance, together and worlds apart.

"And why have you come to grace me with your presence, dearest sister?"

"I have been approached regarding a certain matter which concerns us."

"Us? Are you not head of house Abrasax?"

"Currently." He raises his eyebrows as if there is a great deal missing from that statement, but Kalique offers nothing more.

"Anything to do with lessening my incarceration? Pleading my case before the courts?" Though his tone is glib, his visage remains stern. Kalik lifts her chin.

"I wouldn't do anything if even I could."

"Then what?"

"Jupiter." Titus almost betrays a hint of real interest.

"Mother dear is back in the picture?"

"Now you call her Mother? After manipulating her into marriage just to murder her." Her eyes harden, that he would dare harm their mother, whom she had so desired to win back in the form of Jupiter Jones. Some piece of her, the set of her shoulders, the clenching of her fists, hints of her continued hope, but the cant of her head, the stiffness in her spine tell another tale.

"I have my own interests to consider."

"Well, then, consider this. An interested party wants to meet."

"And what did this interested party want?"

"To offer assistance. And, a truce."


	3. Chapter 3

Jupiter Jones chews her lip. Street lights illuminate her silhouetted hand which she raises with reluctance. Pausing, her eyes turn towards Cain, standing resolute beside her shoulder.

"Are really, really you sure you want to do this?" He returns her gaze, each seeking reassurance from the other.

"You think we're not ready?"

"Probably not." She glances down while a small grin plays along her lips. "No more than they are."

"That seems fair." Caine's eyes twinkle with rare amusement. Jupiter lifts her chin, and opens the Bolotnikov's front door.

In the warm light of the living room, shiny new luggage is piled neatly in the middle of the floor. Beyond, seated at their customary places at the dining room table, still clad in comfortable, if bright with hues of Caribbean blue and Tahitian yellow, travelling clothes and sensible sneakers, her mother and Aunt Nino sip contentedly from small mugs.

"Jupiter!" exclaims Aleksa Jones. Cups tinkle against the table as the pair rushes to greet her. She returns her mother's long embrace. Nino steps forward, then stops, her eyes falling speculatively upon Caine.

"Mom," Jupiter slides over to stand beside Caine, "Aunt Nino, this is Caine. Caine Wise." Aleksa's smile widens.

"Yes, of course, we've..." she catches herself, "we've heard so much about him."

"No, we haven't," Nino interrupts with a huff, her protective instincts risen. This young women, her sole niece, the babe whom she held under her very first sunrise and proclaimed her a worthy destiny, her tiny form the promise rising from the ashes of what had remained of their lives. "So, Jupiter's young man, what is your sign?" she asks pointedly.

"My what?" Caine asks with a bemused wrinkling of his brow.

"What is your birthdate?" Nino steps closer.

"Well," Caine begins with a slight stutter.

"And where were you born?"

"Um..." Caine mumbles and shuffles his feet in discomfort. His dark eyes flash over to Jupiter, seeking her assistance. She gapes a bit, then shrugs while Nino continues on.

"He doesn't sound Russian," she confides sidelong to Aleksa.

"No more questions," Aleksa interjects, "just say 'hello'." Nino blushes, the questions are still bubbling behind her subdued eyes. "Shut the door, Jupiter. Do come in," Aleksa instructs, moving closer to offer Caine a proper welcome.

"Father," interrupts a slight moan from above, "is that you?" Vladie, his bright white sneakers and boldly striped shorts in the lead, toddles a short way down the stairs. Aleksa scolds him even as she grasps Caine's hand within her own.

"No, žúlik (faker), this is Jupiter's young man."

"Oh, there really is one?" He brightens and comes down two more steps, running an assessing eye over anyone who might hold more sway over his cousin than his self.

"Where is Vassily? And Irina and everyone?" Jupiter had hoped to endure all the introductions only once and be done with it.

"Zeno bundled them all up in his shiny new truck," Aleksa affords Jupiter a slight knowing nod and wink, and Jupiter knew who had really helped sell the massive diamond ring she had 'inherited' from her brush with Titus Abrasax, the son that wasn't her son. "Vassilly promised them ice cream, but if I know him, he'll cart them all on rounds to inspect the crews' work in his absence."

"So, what," Jupiter hands come to rest on her hips, "you plead sick to duck out?" Vladie's mouth opens in an offended 'o', and whatever else he obviously wants to say is interrupted by a pronounced, thunderous knock. Mouth slightly ajar, his brows raise and his eyes travel to the front door while he drops into a crouch, ready to spring back up the stairs. Caine swivels towards the sound, hands reaching beneath his black jacket, touching the weapon hidden there.

"If that's the cops, I'm not here!" and Vladie slinks backwards. Jupiter rolls her eyes with a scowl.

"What did you do now?"

"Nothing!" Vladie insists with a hiss, mentally ticking off anything he might actually HAVE done that could warrant a warrant.

Her aunt and her mother become still as rabbits trapped in headlights, captive within the threat of that demanding sound. They are illegal immigrants, Jupiter reminds herself. Their security always balanced on a knife's edge.

The pounding comes again.

"Fine, I'll get it." Jupiter steps quickly to the door, Caine at her heel. He nods, and with a quick flip, she turns the knob, then together they step deftly to block the family from the line of site. The door swings inward.

Framed by distant street lights, a hulking shadow blocks the entrance. Jupiter takes an involuntary step back, her fingers tightening on Caine's arm. Even as Caine moves protectively before Jupiter, the house lights fall upon the massive shape crouching under the awning of the stoop, revealing the stuff of Vladie's residual nightmares. Nino clutches herself in sudden, uncomprehending terror. Aleksa swallows hard, her eyes wide.

Jupiter fans her fingers in a vain attempt to hide the large, lumpy, reptilian sargorn from her petrified family, even through the surprise and pique written across her face. Not now, of all times!

"What are you doing here, Aknet? I thought I made it clear that you can't just show up like this!" Her hand waves as if to dispel a wisp of smoke, but smacks against a solid, hard, scaly flesh. "You are actually here?"

"I had to come," She hisses in a gutteral rasp. Having noted, and ignoring, Vladie's silent scream, Caine moves beside Jupiter, scanning beyond the sargorn into the night for the danger he knows must accompany Aknet's visitation. "I must report my failure in person. I am prepared to take the punishment I have earned." **** drops to one knee with a floor shaking thud. A squeak escapes Nino's tight lips.

"Explain," Caine demands.

"I promised that the remaining *workers would protect you and Earth. I failed. Another lures many of us away with promises."

"Many? How many?"

"Too many. Too many to secure this perimeter."

"Damn." He steps forward, hands clenching as if to strangle whatever or whomever would dare threaten Jupiter. With a slight clearing of her throat, Jupiter's mother interjects a calm, common sense suggestion.

"Jupiter," get that... person... inside, quickly, before the neighborhood sees... it!"

"What are you saying?" Nino gasps. "What is it?"

"I," Aleksa shrugs herself back into calm, "don't know. But I've danced at this party before," she admits.

"What do you mean? You knew about... this?" Nino offers a weak wave at the mind bending scene playing out before her.

"Another time."

"How could you not tell me?"

"Another time!" Aleksa takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, turning to face her daughter. "Come, Jupiter, what are we to do?"

"We?" Jupiter glances at each in turn, from Vladie's silent scream, Nino's blood drained face, Caine seeking trouble where trouble should be, the sargon's bowed, gray-green head, to her mother's expectant confidence as if she, Jupiter, actually knew what the hell was going on. She felt she should say something wise and learned, but instead managed to stammer, "What we?"

Before Jupiter can formulate a more coherent answer, the sargorn lifts her massive self from her submissive pose, her eyes glowing like green lanterns. After a moment, she speaks with new urgency. "The perimeter is breached. A party of assassins can be expected." Aleksa soaks in the words, and ghost of an old pain darkens her eyes. Aunt Nino leans as if she wishes she could move, and comfort her sister in that remembered moment. That night had up-heaved both their lives, never to return. She senses that this night, too, will change everything. Jupiter squares her shoulders and takes a steadying breath, turning to Caine. "How long do think we have?"

"Maybe an hour." Caine places a hand on her shoulder. "We'll never make it to Stinger's in time."

"He'll have to come to us."

Aknet growls. "No. This location is known." Jupiter lets that sink in.

Caine's head lowers, and he brushes a finger across a small, pearl hued protrusion alongside his neck. Aleksa's glance betrays her concern at his sudden quietude. Jupiter silently requests patience with a raised hand. Caine speaks softly, as if to himself.

"Yes, that's the situation." He turns back, all the lines on his face stark and grim. "Stinger will meet us." Jupiter nods, already knowing the place. Caine lifts his shoulders in preparation to shuck his concealing jacket, then pauses with a question bright in his eyes for Jupiter. She bites the inside of her cheek before nodding decisively. He swings the jacket from his shoulders.

"Wings?" Vladie squeaks from his perch on the stairs. Eyes turn to him as if recalling his presence. Caine's broad bronze wings snap open, commanding the space within the living room. He stares between the talking dragon in the doorway, and the tarnished angel in the living room, as if he can't decide which is the greater freak. "Wings," Vladi repeats with a resigned shrug. "Why not?" Aunt looks like she could faint if mother weren't holding her up.

"Come on, mom, aunt." She nods to Caine, who begins ushering the two women toward the open door. *** moves back, her own wings spreading in the night. "Don't worry about the luggage," she admonishes her aunt, who determinedly plucks on small bag from the stack and hugs it to her chest before hurrying past Caine. At the door, Jupiter pauses, turning back with an obvious reluctance. "Vladie, come on."

"What? With that? Them?"

"You aren't safe here." He clutches the railing, but his eyes wander the living room, a vague memory dancing like a devil behind his eyes.

"I guess. I guess," he repeats, forcing his feet down each step. Jupiter gives him a decisive shove out the door, into the city night.

"Aknet and I will fly point." Vladie scuttles sideways as the sargorn's wings stretch, and she launches into the night air, a shadow against the struggling stars.

"That means I'm driving. Good, I need to make a stop anyway."

"In that?" Caine asks pointing a finger in disbelief where her mother and aunt are clambering into the family station wagon.

"Not inconspicuous enough?" Jupiter quips, sliding into the driver's seat. "Just wait," and she starts the engine, pulling onto the street with a cautious speed that leaves Caine scowling and wishing with a desire he could not explain that he would be the one in control of that steering wheel. Instead, he resigns himself and takes to the air with a rueful shake of his head. "Keep up, you two," Jupiter calls back with a wry grin.

"Who is after us, anyway?" Vladie whines from the back seat while Jupiter glances frequently at the rear view mirror to catch sight of their flying companions as the wagon swings up onto the freeway ramp.

"I'm not sure," she admits, too preoccupied to prevaricate.

"Not sure? Then how do you know anyone is coming after us? Because a ... dragon... thing... said so?"

"I don't know who," she replies, "there are so many to choose from."

"Eyes on the road!" Vladie barks at Jupiter's slight swerve back into her lane. "Where are we going? Do you even know where we are going?"

"Shut up, Vladie," Aleksa commands, even though her own knuckles are white upon the strap of her seat belt. Soon enough, Jupiter turns off the freeway and down onto a side road, then slows as she pulls up before a broad expanse of chain link fence where a high gate sports a large plaque proclaiming 'UStashIt'. She dims the lights, but keeps the motor running.

"Why are we here? It's obviously closed," Vladie states.

Jupiter opens her door and motions to Caine above. His wings tighten in a dive, and he pulls out at the last moment to glide next to her.

"Woah," Vladie whistles. "Where can I get some of those?"

When Caine reaches within his munitions belt, Jupiter steps back, squinching her eyes and covering her ears. Caine lands a quizzical glance in her direction, then lays a palm sized device against the gate. With clicks and whirs, a portal spirals open, and he motions Jupiter onward. Jupiter ducks her head with a hint of chagrine, and steps through. Scanning the numbers on the faceless storage units, she fumbles with her keys, dropping them in the near dark where they fall with a clatter.

"You dropped them!" Vladie leans forward to yell out the driver's window.

"Do shut up, Vladie," Nino hisses sidelong. The squeals and groans of a nearby garage door sound to him like a dinner bell tolling out across the night. What other obvious comment he might make falls short upon glimpsing the array of brightly colored royal guards filing out behind Jupiter.

"Guard," Jupiter commands, pointing directly at the station wagon. Her handful of royal guards array themselves around the vehicle like a gawdy Thanksgiving day float. With a cacophony of metallic clunks, they grav themselves to the wagon, prepared to move out.

"Right," Caine sighs, "that won't draw any attention." Jupiter slides back behind the wheel. "Follow me, then," and he takes flight once more, angling towards the heart of Chicago.

"Don't they have arms?" Nino asks softly.

"Just guns," Jupiter answers, her eyes trained on Caine.

"Robots? With guns? Taking over the world?!"

"Shut up, Vladie!" Jupiter, Aleksa, and Nino cry in unison. He sinks down in his seat, sullen, while they rise back onto the freeway once again.

"Oh," Aleksa murmurs looking behind them to the fading crash of glass and the grinding of metal from the collision of two nearby cars. "I think that was our doing. And that. And, probably that." Jupiter grimaces, doing her best to ignore the rising chaos they are creating while keeping Caine and *** in sight.

Miles, and multiple accidents later, the tamed expanse of river glitters beneath the bridge where they cross. Jupiter swings off the expressway, grumbling beneath her breath about one lane roads and buses and downtown parking. Diving low, Caine motions to the towering glass height of the Sears tower.

"You'll never find a place to park," Vladie pipes up.

"Vladie," Aleksa begins, but Jupiter just pulls to a stop in the middle of the road.

"He's right." Vladie's eyebrows raise in surprise. "Out, everyone out."

"Here?" Nino glances at the street signs, the traffic, the curious gazes of the crowds strolling along the brightly lit streets. "What are we doing here?"

"That," Jupiter says, pointing to a long, thin blue beam illuminating the sidewalk with an unearthly glow. About them, a crowd had already begun to gather, pointing upward where the beam disappears into the haze. Aleksa stands near her open car door, hesitating.

"Jupiter, can you, can you do what they did to Katherine Dunlevy and party? No one remembered a thing."

Jupiter groans. Those words pricked at the depths of her own guilt and confusion. What was right? What could she, as Queen of the Earth, do that would not make her just another Abrasax in training? Having learned a few hard lessons about acting when action was required, she waves away her concerns with a quick swipe of her hand, and shakes her head as if to clear away any impending fog of fear.

"I know. I don't know. I can't worry about that right now."

"What, you want me to go into that thing?" Caine cradles his forehead in his hands for a moment, throwing a frustrated look at Jupiter. She returns his question with a nod, and Caine gives Vladie a brisk push into the beam. The onlookers oggling visages are rapidly obscured by a score of phones aimed in Valdie's horrified direction.

"Look at their faces." Aleksa gazes into the sea of wide eyes gathering around them. Some want to believe. Others can not, could not believe. "They aren't ready, my darling girl. I doubt even your father, Bog lyubit yego (God love him), would have been ready." And she nods toward Nino, white as cheese while she watches Vladie's writhing form rise like a bubble in a straw. Aleksa places a hand lightly upon Jupiter's shoulder, her eyes as soft as her voice. "They will believe what they need to."

Believe what they need to. What did she need to believe, Jupiter wonders to herself. Did she actually believe that she was Queen of the Earth? Did she need to believe that, really believe it, in order to face what she knew was coming?

"What, never seen street magic before?" Jupiter improvises an explanation, a comprehensible reality, over her shoulder even while pushing Nino toward the blue beam of light. A collective 'Ooooh' rises and falls like waves, ointment to soothe her trepidation.

Caine's face jerks skyward, where, far overhead, spats of light herald some unseen number of ships. Ships engaging in battle.

"And a meteor shower, too, wow, what a night, huh?" The blue beam flickers, but does not fade. Aknet swoops close, should anyone fall. Caine grasps Jupiter about her waist, and with a heavy sweep of his wings, lifts them upward.

"Our hour's up."


	4. Chapter 4

"Entitled entanglements never end well," Captain Diomika Tsing muses to herself, reviewing the message with a dower eye. A slight frown creases her stoic brow. Around her, the bridge crew busies themselves with their appointed routines, yet more than one glance falls her way, and the air is heavy with their expectation. "He can't guarantee that we will be close by. We can't serve as Jupiter's personal guard."

"Did you use that explanation when you argued for more time patrolling this sector?" Gemma's voice is her usual composed, general calm, but Captain Tsing recognizes the wry inflection the android can effect, when she chose. "The alert did come from a registered Marshall. Stinger wouldn't call for reinforcements lightly."

"I know. I've already put this crew at risk on Jupiter's and Caine's behalf. I just hope Caine knows what he's doing."

"Of course he doesn't." Kiza Apini interjects as she steps on to the main deck of the Aegis cruiser. She sports the black on black gear of an Aegis, with two silvery white, feather light patches upon each shoulder, the mark of a Legionnaire cadet. Her long, golden hair is tied in three tight chains of braids. A twin pair of energy guns spring from each thigh. "Caine knows as much about love as Jupiter does about the big, bad universe. But this isn't about love, is it? You called me?" She pauses, gauging the activity on the bridge, the views upon their screens, the message hovering like a dark butterfly before Captain Tsing. "We've changed course."

Captain Tsing nods sagely. She motions to the glowing message and steps aside for Kiza's examination.

"I fear you will miss your interview with the Legionnaire." Kiza nods slowly, acclimating her self to that fact.

"They need help." Her voice is calm, but her face is tight with controlled concern. Stinger, her adopted father, is sure to jump to Caine and Jupiter's defense, even if the act were to claim his own life. Barely recovered from his own recent captivity, he had chosen to return to Earth, watching over this newly risen queen and Caine, whom she loved as a brother. Kiza had felt a passing stab of envy when she realized Caine's depth of feelings for Jupiter. But in the sum, she found it was her father's need to serve that some days consumed her with worry for his safety. His torn, conflicted eyes had reflected in her own heart when he made that choice, he to stay, she to fly off to a destiny which she dreamed would make him proud. Now, this.

Captain Tsing interjects into Kiza's dark musings. "My recommendation will stand with the Hall of Aegis."

"Of course. My thanks." Kiza's eyes glitter, as her every muscle tightens into a fighting stance, and she aims her sights where the tiny blue dot slowly enlarges, that planet that was, for a time, her own home.

"Hold here," Captain Tsing commands as they reach the orbit equidistant as the moon.

"Aren't you going to assist?" Kiza asks too quietly.

"Of course." Captain Tsing steps evaluates the information dancing before her on the screens. "But the threat isn't imminent. Stinger is already in position with Jupiter's ship," she trips over the words, her honor as an Aegis captain warring with her newfound fondness for the courage and devotion of Caine Wise and Jupiter Jones, yet she knows that the ship isn't legally Jupiter's to own, "and extracting."

"So we just wait here?"

"I need to see," Diomika Tsing whispers, then steps back from her console. "We are Aegis, not mercenaries." Her brush with the machinations of the Abrasax family had too often left her feeling powerless and outmaneuvered. "I intend to collect solid proof of these transgressions, this time."

"Bait?" asks Gemma, turning her frozen features toward the front monitor.

"Incentive. To show themselves." Kiza's lips thin dangerously. Captain Tsing sees, but ignores this insubordination. "Record," she commands Philo, "everything."

As if hearing her orders, far below, the waters along the city shoreline flicker with sudden turbulence, roils briefly, glows like some mythic sea serpent, then half a dozen single fighters shoot out from the depths of the lake. They rise swiftly, circling the ship that, while invisible to any tersie's eyes, glowed brightly in their monitors. The hidden ship fires back with precision aim, and two of the fighters spin away, fragments spraying like a meteor shower against the night. The remainder, however, have focused their efforts upon the belly of the ship, where the entry port forms a fragile link to the tiny forms rising below.

"Down, support that grav beam!" Captain Tsing barks the command even while Kiza leans forward as if she might engage those ships herself. "Deploy the suits. Engage those fighters!" Far below the main deck, a score of darkly armored suits, manned and waiting within the arching cavern that is an Aegis cruiser flight deck, drop into the vast black of space, and dive into the glowing lights of the Chicago night sky. Like an arrow of angered wasps they aim towards the sparks of battle, stinging their own sprays of brilliant, dangerous light.

"The bream has failed." Gemma calls out.

"Oh, no," Kiza breaths out the words, "they're falling."

As if in a half remembered nightmare, Jupiter watches the flicker, and the failing, of the gravity beam's blue glow. She barely has time to gasp as the flailing, screaming body of Vladie plummets directly down towards her. In a horrifying moment of instinct, her arms wrap around his legs, and, completely overbalanced, together they fall.

Almost immediately, Caine reaches them and grasps Vladie by the back of his shorts, halting their breakneck speed, his wings straining with the combined weight. Vladie's eyes bulge in terror, and no small amount of sudden pain as his shorts pull up quite tightly. Together, Caine and Jupiter struggle to right themselves, despite Vladie's continued wails and thrashing. Jupiter glances down, her eyes wide and straining. Just as her feet brush the pavement, like a misshapen, ungainly bird, the entangled trio begins to rise.

"Stop!" Jupiter yells as Vladie's elbow nails her in the ribs for the second time. She peers around Vladie, her eyes pleading with Caine. "My mother? Nino?"

"Safe," Caine manages to convey with a stab of his chin at the light cruiser high above. With heavy wings beats and the combined force of both pairs of glowing gravity boots, Jupiter and Caine inch skywards. Jupiter spares a single glance upward, where the beams from two light fighter ships beat against the small cruiser with her most precious of cargoes barely aboard.

"Stinger. Go. Leave!" Caine opens his mouth as if to contest, but snaps it shut. Even as his wings beat with heavy strokes, his eyes close briefly in silent communication. For an instant he frowns before his eyes open, and offers Jupiter a terse nod.

One of the enemy fighters veers away, and angles towards their own small struggling knot of humanity. She watches with growing horror, knowing there can be no dancing flight as once Caine had saved her own life. Time seems to slow, and she wonders who crouches within that ship. A keeper? A sargon? A lycantent? Who commands them? Who wants her dead, this time? Her eyelids close with fatal expectation.

A gasp escapes her when her body is wrenched sideways, but rather than the force of blazing death, the grappling arms of a single suit jerk them upward, and, however briefly, out of the line of fire. The single ship follows. The world spins in crazy circles, the suit pilot dipping and dodging the beams. Instinctively she ducks as sparks sting her face. Caine reaches around Vladie to encompass them. Despite the forces pulling and pushing and the dizzying accelerations, she finds strength from his embrace, his eyes, his scent. He knows this world, this type of battle. Possibly more at home on the life and death of a battle field than anywhere else other than by Jupiter's side, if Caine has any, he shows no fear, at least, none for himself.

Three more suits pull into formation around them, together engaging a shield, blocking her sight and the deadly beams. The forces steadied by the shielding, she merely has to look into those calm, wise eyes, and Caine answers her unspoken questions.

"Captain Tsing is laying cover fire. She's readying our retrieval. Stinger has already portalled to safety."

Tucked within the ring of single suits, they fly into the night, Vladie passed out between them.


	5. Chapter 5

Aleska's wide eyes soak in the opulence around her, the deep wood paneling with its gleaming gold inlay, the broad cream colored floor, the high arched roof. She realizes she has been clutching her sister for some time now, and was being clutched rather painfully in return. Yet it is Nino, Nino who had led Aleksa through the city and the tangle of bribes and warren of the hulking gray port, while Aleksa herself was still wrapped within the shroud of her own grief, Nino who had held her hand and her heart while she struggled through the pain as she birthed her only child in the dirty and dank of a crate abroad at sea all those years ago, Nino, her rock, with her quiet inner strength, with her own reasons to escape the regime that had claimed Aleksa's husband and upheaved her existence, it is Nino who recovers first.

"My umerli (Did we die?)? My na nebesakh (Are we in heaven)?" Nino whispers, then her gaze falls on the ring of brightly colored robots which Jupe had recently collected, and finally to the greenish gray hulk of the sargon crouching just beyond them, "ili vi adu (or hell)?" Aleksa finds no words to reply. Rather, she is mesmerized by the view like a movie screen, the black of space slowing filling with a turbulent, multi-hued orb. She quickly recognizes the roiling clouds of her husband's favored planet, her daughter's namesake.

Jupiter.

Hanging before her like a long forgotten promise.

A calm voice interrupts her revery, and a form rises from the chair framed by that glorious, impossible view.

"Ladies," Stinger Apizi steps around the hair and offers a respectful nod to herself and Nino, even sparing one for the sargon. "Jupiter and Caine are aboard the Aegis cruiser."

"You, you know my daughter?" Aleksa stutters.

"Oh, yes," he breathes. "She saved my life." Aleksa's eyes flutter with surprise. Her daughter had many more secrets to explain than she ever dreamed.

"You are the queen mother," he says moving forward and bowing deeply before Aleksa. Mostly from reflex, she accepts his proffered hand. When he rises to look full into her face, Aleksa blushes like a school girl in response to the glimmer in the man's eyes.

"I'm Stinger. Stinger Apini."

"Well, Stinger," Aleksa works at regaining her composure with some difficulty. "I want to know what's going on."

"I will answer any question," he smiles.

"Good. I want to know everything."


	6. Chapter 6

Jupiter rushes into the control cabin, her hair disheveled from the recent battle, bright motes of blood trickling on her face and arms.

"My mother? Nino?"

"Safe, Your Majesty," Captain Tsing replies in a calming tone, "aboard that mostly illegal light cruiser," she adds with a hint of admonishment. "Glad to see you both are as well," she adds as Cain steps in behind Jupiter. Her eyebrows raise slightly when Kiza sprints across the small space to envelope Caine in a relieved hug. Kiza herself releases Caine quickly, abashed at her own emotional display. She has the demeanor of an Legionnaire to uphold, after all. "We have moved the male tersis recovered with you to the medical bay for assessment."

"He isn't hurt." Caine explains, coming up behind Jupiter. "Just passed out."

"Yes, he doesn't need any of that, stuff," Jupiter rushes to add. Captain Tsing cants her head slightly, comprehending the words though not understanding Jupiter's aversion to the life saving serum. "Where are they now? My mother and Nino?"

"Currently orbiting within the shield of Jupiter's magnetic field. We could return you, however I have a number of concerns to be addressed first." Though she has become fond of Caine and Jupiter, she must act with the authority of the Aegis, first and foremost. Jupiter hears the change in her tone, and faces her, waiting. "Do you have a crew ready to perform cleanup?"

"Cleanup?"

"The planetary damage was not extensive, however there are strict regulations regarding tersies access to Orous technology. That must be removed immediately. And there is the matter of a blanking operation."

"I can't," Jupiter stutters, "I can't think about that right now."

"You have to," Caine leans down and speaks softly in her ear. She hears her mother's words, 'they're not ready,' and she knows this is true. With Caine beside her, she takes a deep steadying breath.

"I guess, I guess the technology is the most important, right?" Captain Tsing considers a moment, then nods.

"The Aegis can send a retrieval crew at your request," she offers. Jupiter smiles and relaxes with relief.

"Yes, Ok!"

"Good. We will determine the expense to be placed against your Abrasax account later." Jupiter's smile wavers into a weak grimace.

"Ok. Later works for me. But forget the blanking." Captain Tsing raises her brows. "If there really isn't any damage, then they'll just explain it away. Humans are good at that." The Captain nods once her assent, and continues.

"Next, the matter of your unregistered property," Jupiter's brows wrinkle with confusion, "specifically the male currently in our medical bay."

"Property? Vladie?" Jupiter considers with a rueful grin at his reaction when she tells him that. Then, the full import hit her hard. "And my mother?"

"By Orous law, they are merely tersies, your subjects, and as Queen of Earth, your property."

"Illegal aliens, even here," she mutters, hurt and confused. "That's just not fair. My mother spent her whole life in hiding. I won't make her live through that again."

"We can get them registered," Caine offers.

"As my subjects? My property?"

"Either that, or return them to the planet, immediately." Jupiter considers that option.

"Will they be safe?" Captain Tsing hesitates.

"You can't promise that," Kiza says darkly. "Whoever is after Jupiter has already used my father to try and get to her."

"I know," Captain Tsing agrees with an aggrieved sigh. "We can't predict what other ploys this hidden enemy will attempt."

"Your family will be safe with Stinger," Caine says. Kiza nods with vigorous agreement.

"Ok. I don't like it, but OK."

"We can fill out any registration forms from here. However, there are other matters which must be address on Orous. Your charges to be filed against Titus Abrasax,"

"I have to file charges?" Jupiter interrupts.

"Formally, yes. And," but Jupiter interrupts again.

"But he tried to kill me. Isn't that enough?"

"The Aegis can address those specific charges," Gemma explains, "however if you intend on issuing complaint regarding his treatment of you for any and all monetary reparations, only you can file those."

"And," Captain Tsing begins again.

"What good will that do?" And Jupiter's face clouds with a variety of emotions. She hates Titus as she never knew she could hate anyone. Yet, there was something else, something he had revealed, like peeking behind a curtain at a much bigger picture she couldn't yet see.

"And," Captain Tsing barked this time, "the charges which have been filed against you." Jupiter stops, her mouth slightly open. Caine frowns and places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Charges?" he asks protectively closer to Jupiter, but then his eyes clear with comprehension. "The Abrasax light cruiser. We did rather steal it."

"That, but also the damages incurred to structures during the fire fight. There are strict regulations about skirmishes taking place within Orous space." Jupiter looks somewhat abashed, then lifts her chin with defiance.

"We were just defending ourselves."

"I have no doubt, your Majesty," Captain Tsing nods her assent, "but that is for the courts to decide. And,"

"How long will all this take?" Jupiter is thinking of another mission, one thrust upon her, a trail of bread crumbs it seems she was destined to follow. The hints of her former genetic self, Seraphi Abrasax, whatever secrets she had uncovered that had changed her mind about everything she had ever taken for granted, set her against her own family, and, apparently, had ended her life.

"The initial filing must take place within three months," Gemma says, "however the proceedings can take decades." Jupiter grimaces and turns to Caine for his advice.

"A case can take a hundred years to finish. The courts are designed to favor Entitleds."

"And," Captain Tsing steps forward, "there is the matter of a case filed against you, personally, Jupiter."

"Against me? What for?"

"That is information to which I am not privy," she says, squaring her shoulders.

"Maybe by whoever is trying to kill her?" Kiza offers, turning to Jupiter. "Your Majesty, the Empress did have a lot to say about you upsetting her universe."

"A ruse?" Caine wonders aloud. "To get her out in the open?" Captain Tsing shrugs slightly, but her eyes dart to Caine, a warning, an entreaty.

"Perhaps. The message is keyed for you alone," she says, offering a sheave to Jupiter. Jupiter's hand shakes from trepidation and exhaustion even as she accepts the gleaming bit of glass and data. She glares at it for a moment, before activating the sheave with the glowing blue seal upon her wrist. While she reads, Captain Tsing motions Cain aside.

"I thought you should know," she speaks low, but with satisfaction, "we recovered one of the single fighters that attacked you." Caine instantly becomes alert. "The ships did not come from off the planet. Moreover, we traced their registration," he leans forward to catch her soft words, brows furrowing in a disturbed frown, "to Balem Abrasax."


	7. Chapter 7

Like rows of felled wheat, the prone form of a hundred humans lines the limestone path. The sky above them is the bright blue of summer lighting their basic brown cloth to a dusty shade of tan. Their deep brown hair falls over their light faces of various browns and creams like protective veils.

The Empress Morkenin, her ebony skin swathed in a cape of shimmering silver draped over a practical set of midnight blue tunic and trousers, strides along on her knee length polished boots amidst a company of equally dark, gleaming royal guard, and a dozen sims serene of face, concealing their deadly nature. She surveys her dominion with a cold, calculating eye. The sound of light footsteps reaches her from behind, and she pauses.

"Empress," and a small, almost albino white body, bows low, revealing the brand which marks him as a splice.

"What is your news?" the Empress asks pulling back the cowl of her cape. A scattering of diamonds glitter in the sunlight as she angles her head ever so slightly in the splice's direction.

"The Abrasax have agreed to your meeting." The Empress nods slightly.

"Of course they have."

"There is much discord among that family," he continues at her bidding. "Kalique is not favored as the next Prime. No one takes Titus as a serious contender."

"Your spies have been put to good use."

"At your command," he agrees, rising from his stance of obeisance, "I will make further preparations." She says nothing, expecting everything. Chicanery Night turns to walk back from where he came.

"Mr. Night, you did not mention the attack." Mr. Night tenses and his feet stop their measured, yet hasty, retreat. "I expect all news of That one."

"I," he stutters slightly at the reproach, "thought that was your doing." The Empress barely raises one brow and glances down at the little double dealer. Turning a dismissive shoulder, she continues in a more thoughtful tone.

"Not I," she murmurs. "Then who?"


	8. Chapter 8

The door hisses open, and Caine steps in to find Jupiter seated on the small bed of her personal chambers aboard the Aegis cruiser. She glances up from the sheave resting on her lap as he speaks.

"Vladie is awake."

"That's good, I suppose."

"He keeps complaining." Jupiter snorts a tight little laugh.

"Him I could have sent back to Earth." She sighs and glances out the view port into the starlit black. "I don't mean that. But I wish he wasn't here."

"We could transfer him to the Abrasax light cruiser. Stinger should have some ideas how to keep him in line."

"That doesn't seem fair, to my mother. Can you really do that?"

"Captain Tsing could send him in a shuttle."

"Best idea I've heard all day," she replies brightly. "He will get in less trouble there. Speaking of trouble," and she raises the sheave for Cain's viewing, "from that Empress that kidnapped Stinger. She's suing me for damages to her house. Can you believe that?"

"Yes," he says shortly. Jupiter glances up, then just shakes her head and sets the sheave aside, motioning to the foot of her bed where a large, dark chest rested with its lid propped open.

"I guess these things are tougher than they look," she says referring to the stack of sheaves glittering from within the chest. "Gemma was able to have most of them back together. She doesn't know if the data is OK, though." Jupiter stares at the chest and pauses thoughtfully. "The archives. What's in them?

"I've never been there. I've heard they store the ledgers of Entitleds. Millions of years of them." Jupiter looks at him with a fresh excitement.

"Are they on Orous?"

"Of course."

"And I the law demands I go back there." Caine shakes his head with a scowl and growls out his next words.

"It's a perfect place for another trap. Captain Tsing has to know that."

"Everyone expects me to go to the Hall of Aegis. So," she says rising, and places a light kiss on Caine's questioning lips, "that is the last place we will go."


	9. Chapter 9

"What can it mean?" Nino wrings her hands together, gazing out the window at the cold light of the stars. She sits on a sumptuous, cushioned bench of deep red wood inlaid with gold scroll work on the main control room of the Abrasax light cruiser. Aleksa is seated nearby, scanning the glowing symbols hovering over a sheave, her brows furrowed in concentration.

"I don't know," Aleksa replies, not looking up. "I need more time, to soak it in." She almost lifts her head, shrugging, but she is loath to relinquish her attention from the information teasing at her mind.

"I understand it can be hard for Tersies to accept," Stinger rises from the perch of the comfortable control chair. His head is cocked in an attitude of sad resignation. "Harvest has been the coin of the universe for millions of years. I know it seems heartless, but is it any worse than war? Or starvation?" He glances with a bit of trepidation toward Aleksa. When first he explained the nature of the universe, she was quite vociferous in her condemnation of the process of gathering entire planetary populations just to extend the life of a privileged few. "I guess that is for you to decide."

"Yes, of course, that's absolutely horrible," she replies a bit off hand. "But you said that Jupiter has saved us from that, yes?"

"Well, yes, Earth at least." Stinger is somewhat bemused by the her casual reply regarding this newly revealed universal reality. He does not yet know about the injustices that the sisters have suffered at the hands of their own 'humanity.' "Humans are horrible to each other all over the universe. I am very sad, but not very surprised. However, I was speaking of these equations," Aleksa waves the sheave in the air and glances at it with a mix of bewilderment, and fierce determination. "You translated, but I don't understand many of these notations." Yet, her eyes caress the equations like a long lost lover. "I remember," she says softly, her eyes caressing the floating symbols like a long lost lover a hint of a smile tugging the corners of her lips. A small smile flashes across Stinger's own lips like a fleeting reflection.

"I am happy, that you have your mathematics returned to you," Nino says, yet her hands are clasped tightly in her lap, and she continues her gaze out the window with a lost, lonely look. "All my studies, what can they possibly mean now?" Nino shakes her head and looks away from the window. "Once, I could construct a natal chart in my head. But here, what would be the point?"

"I see," Stinger says, rubbing his chin with a slight smile. He really doesn't understand what Nino means about 'signs', anymore than she understands what he means about 'splices.'

"How could a chart ever be plotted for a child born in space?"

"Well, what about the problem with ascendants in the far North? Didn't you find an answer that still worked?"

"Well, yes, but, I don't see how that is the is the planet? Where is the center?" Her arms make an expansive waves, as if to encompass the entire universe, while she releases a heavy, dejected sigh, as if the force of all her disappointments in life culminated in that breath. Aleksa sets her sheave aside at the lost, pained tone in her sister's voice.

"I don't have those answers," she says softly, placing an palm on her sister's arm. "But if anyone can find them, it is you"

Stinger watches that gentle touch, then clears his throat and turns away, an odd look crossing his face. A gentle buzzing emanates from the control console, capturing his attention.

"A ship requesting docking." The sisters tense, memories of hiding, like being hunted, dancing like shadows across their faces. Stinger's relieved sigh comforts them. "A shuttle from Captain Tsing. She's something of a friend. Vladie? Who is Vladie?" Aleksa's head jerks up with a grimace.

"Trouble," Nino replies with a roll of her eyes. Stinger's eyes narrow at the words, but Aleksa waves away his concern.

"Our nephew. Family."

"Ah, that kind of trouble," Stinger replies with a knowing nod. This, at least, for all the strange topics the sisters have been discussing, family he understands.

"Just find some place out of the way to tuck him in. Give him food and games and he will be fine." Stinger glances at the message, then grins.

"I know just the place."


	10. Chapter 10

"Bob, at your service." The sim strides with eager steps onto the main deck. His grin is genuine, if a bit stiff, and his ear buds whir slightly before settling against his head. He stops and bows before Jupiter. Caine stands to her right, his great bronze wings tucked beneath his long black coat. The entire deck is a sea of gray and black on black Aegis, Kiza's silver shoulder wings the only bright spot of color.

"Great!" She chirps. "The same Bob, right? My Bob?"

"As requested!"

Kiza leans forward between them to whisper in Caine's ear. A jealous chord twangs in Jupiter's heart. Even though her head knows full well that Caine is hers alone, young life had been hammered with enough disappointments to beat her security into a twist of nerves.

"Why this sim? It could have been any sim. There are a million 'Bobs'."

Jupiter sneaks a glance at the crew beyond Captain Tsing. With a bit of an conspiratorial grin, and an equal bit of claiming space, she whispers back. "Nope, I wanted our Bob." She speaks for other hears to hear. "Captain Tsing, you had mentioned a small contingent would come with us?"

"Given the nature of attention you seem to attract, Your Majesty, I would be remiss not to."

"Can we have Gemma?" Captain Tsing's eyebrows raise only slightly.

"Only?"

"Oh, well," Jupiter's cheeks turn a bit pink, "anyone else you think should, you know, come."

"I had intended Philo and a hand squad." She nods at the five Aegis standing at attention near the grav beam chamber. Jupiter chews her lip as she assesses the extra body guards.

"Ah, I see, that many? Won't we stand out?" Bob offers his best reassuring face.

"Six and minus any royal guard is a small company for most entitled, your Majesty."

"Ah." Somehow this was already getting out of hand, and she wasn't sure how to get her plan back on track.

"I could spare a larger team..." Captain Tsing begins.

"No, no, more than enough. I just," and she waves halfheartedly at Gemma. Captain Tsing tilts her head.

"if Gemma is your wish, your Majesty..."

"No, nothing like that! I just thought, I meant... Gemma, would you like to come?" The concept seems to perplex both Captain Tsing and Gemma, that an entitled would ask their opinion. Captain Tsing takes a breath, as if to remind herself that this is Jupiter, not some high handed royal expecting her to fulfill every whim.

"I don't know if 'like' is the term I would use," Gemma replies in her even tones, "for a visit to the courts."

"I trust her to have my back," Caine interjects from Jupiter's side. She startles a bit, turning to him with a smile blooming on her lips. Captain Tsing considers a moment.

"All right Caine, your Majesty. Gemma can keep a log for the Aegis, as well. I have a feeling this simple trip could be anything but."

"Where would you get an idea like that?" Jupiter quips as she tries, having achieved her first step of the plan, not to hustle too quickly towards the grav chamber. Caine ducks his head to hide his grin as he falls in step behind her, but protectively enters the beam before.

"Should I get one of those?" She says as Kiza flicks off the strap on her twin energy guns.

"Should you?" Kiza teases.

"Probably not." Jupiter grimaces. "But I can do stun."

"I'd still rather not be stunned in the line of duty," Philo dares his own tease, then rapidly follows with, "Your Majesty." Caine tries hides his wry grin by stepping into the beam.

"Surely the courts are safe enough," Bob says, affronted.

"I was just shopping for a dress the last time, remember?" Jupiter shrugs and steps in after Caine.

Gliding down onto the wide, gilded landing platform beside Caine, Jupiter alights and then steps aside to clear the way. She takes a steadying breath, and Caine leans closer, watching where her eyes look as if he could see as she sees.

"I'd forgotten we would be expected to take the royal route." She grimaces as the each of her entourage emerges one by one from the beam to array themselves in a protective circle. Caine shucks his coat and shakes out the full extent of his wings, signalling that a Skyjacker has come among the entitled throng, and is prepared to defend at all costs. Jupiter has spent too much of her life in hiding. Now, surrounded in the sea of the glittering Orousians, she feels absolutely exposed. Caine senses her discomfort, and attempts to understand.

"You don't have to do this."

'"Probably. I don't even understand why." She looks away, rifling through her own thoughts, "She died for it."

"Seraphi?"

"Yes."

"You aren't her."

"Of course. But, if I think about it, until all this," and her wave encompasses the distant, arching ceiling, the din of colorful entitled, the Aegis at her elbow, then turns to look deep into Caine's eyes, "until this, until my family was in danger, I never never had anything that important to me. And I think," she takes his hand, locking her fingers in her own, "I think I need to finish it, for all of us."

"You have all these other duties that need your attention."

"Duties? What does that really mean, to be Queen of Earth?" Caine glances down and to the side with a slight shrug before replying slowly.

"I was actually thinking about the legal issues." Jupiter's cheeks turn pink.

"Ah. But that, all that seems so unreal. This, this is real. It changed her life. And she changed mine."

"You don't owe her anything."

"Maybe not. But what if whatever she found out is really that important? What if I'm the only one who might be able to find it again?"

As he looks into her eyes, his own deepen and warm with devotion, and respect. She had respected him as himself. He had been intrigued, then entranced, then in love with that part of her.

"I'll help you however I can." She tilts her head upward with a wide smile and lays her head upon his chest. His wings shudder with emotion.

"Thank you."

"Mmmm, mmmm," Kiza teases when she steps onto the platform.

"This way," Bob interrupts with a cheery wave. We can catch the train just up that corridor."

"Train?"

"The courts are difficult to access by design," Philo offers. Jupiter takes a deep breath for courage, noting how their little band sticks out with their matched black on black amidst the chaotic sea of gilt and dye and towering hair. A stream of light high above their heads directs the entitled travelers toward their appointed connections. They joined the throng beneath a light beam pointing the way in steps high above them, people peeling off to follow the flashing symbols for their train.

"I wonder how much these trips actually cost," Jupiter murmurs, resting her wrist over the glowing pillar. The wide, tall double doors swung back and revealed the opulent tables and chairs of the 'train.'

"We'll survey the car." Philo motions the Aegis troops forward, hands resting on their weapons. Jupiter nods them on, waiting at the edge of the platform. She chews her lip and gazes around, standing on tip toe now and again to survey the crowd and the layout of the platform. Caine takes in all the same information with a quick glance.

"I filled in Kiza," he whispers to the agitated Jupiter, which does little to settle her nerves.

"Oh, of course," she replies absently, while inwardly she fights another twinge of unwarranted jealousy.

Philo motions them aboard.

"Everything looks clear. Might be a bit crowded as we didn't schedule ahead for fear of detection."

A little crowded translated into only a few open seats among the wide round tables. Caine stands by the door, watching the sea of faces with a cautious eye. Jupiter and Kiza remain close beside him. Bob takes in all the glitter and gold with a smile, but Jupiter gently catches him by the arm before he can move farther beyond the doors.

"Bob, where is the Archive?" She asks in a low undertone.

"The Archive? Which archive do you mean?" She waves him to keep his voice down. He leans in, seeming to enjoy a bit of skulduggery.

"The entitled Archive. Where they keep their stored ledgers."

"Nowhere near the Aegis court complex."

"Then where?"

"Nearly the other side of Orous, in the deeps. No one goes there."

"I need to go there." Bob's ear buds whiz and spin with consternation.

"We can schedule another outing. I'm sure these court proceedings will take days. Months even."

"So I've heard. Gemma," she calls her over with a nod of her chin.

"Yes, your Majesty?"

"What do you know of the Archive?"

"Dangerous place."

A soft chime heralds the closing of the doors for embarking.

"Now!" Caine hisses, and thrusts Bob and Gemma through the doors as he, Jupiter, and Kiza leap back onto the platform. Bob, unbalanced by the shove, trips, and he and Gemma go sprawling onto the platform just as the doors slide shut. Jupiter turns to see Philo's confused face pressed against the frosted glass as the train began its rapid move.

"What was that?" Bob wails as Gemma unceremoniously dump him over and off of her. She, in turn, leaps up and begin racing after the train. She grasps the doors and begins to pull them apart with her fingers, but the train begins to pick up speed. She glances back at the gaping faces and leaps back off the train.

"I was unable to affect our entrance to the car," she relates as she sprints back to them.

"Um, quite," Jupiter coughs a bit. Bob lifts himself and brushes imaginary dust from his pants.

"We will now be fashionably late to the court proceedings."

"Not today, Bob."

"We can just catch then next train. You can negotiate the fine with the magistrate, I'm sure."

"Her Majesty has a different plan," Caine instructed.

"We are here to address the charges against you, your Majesty," Gemma reminds them.

"Not today, Gemma. We are taking a side trip to the Archive instead. Are you going to stop me?"

"I don't have any orders in that regard. I am here to protect you. I go where you go."

"Then," Jupiter says with a swing of her arm in the right direction, "we go. Now!" Bob stands in confusion for a moment before he trots after them.

"Every time I work for you, I receive another demotion."

"None of it is your fault. Your real job today is to get us to the Archive."

"The Deeps? I hear it was a nice place, long ago. Are you quite sure?" He asks one last time as they come to a stop just outside the arched and gilt platform.

"Definite." Bob sighs, then motions to a grav beam station. And they go down. And down. Jupiter's face twists with a look that 'he wasn't kidding about Deep!' and she blows out her cheeks while she descent continues. Then, her feet touch down with a bit of a crunch.

"Holy crap. Maybe I shouldn't have complained about the royal station." Caine scans the small, grimy platform, his wings snapping against his back. As their much smaller party emerges from the beam, many of the drab clothed people step hastily aside with furtive glances and frowns at the obviously Aegis clothed companions.

"Wow," Kiza mouths as she steps out and ogles the low ceilinged, rust hued platform.

"Which train, Bob?"

"That one, Your Majesty."

"I see," Jupiter says, swallowing the lump in her throat. Her eyes widen with a look that says 'no wonder entitleds wouldn't come here' upon gazing at the dust encrusted train. The cars, while much larger than any subway she had ever seen, were slightly listing on rusty track, and the doors appeared to not quite be willing to close. When Jupiter placed her wrist above the short, squat pillar, it stuttered a bit before accepting her royal seal, as if it is too, didn't believe she meant to be there. The whole made the old family station wagon look like a Cadillac. Squaring her shoulders, Jupiter steps onto the train car side by side with Caine and Kiza.

"I am so demoted," Bob's shoulders sag with dejection, lifting his hand to survey a sticky blue jelly from the overhead grab bar.

"Well, can I buy you or something?" She grimaces at the goo dripping from his hand, then finds anything else interesting to look at. Flickering images she guesses must be advertisements limn the walls, the windows, the floor, like a giddy, glitchy carnival. "Everything seems to be for sale around here."

"You would do that?"

"I already own my own family," she says with a touch of hysteria. "Why not one more?"

"Really? An entitled sim? You wouldn't have to wipe me, would you?"

"Um, wipe you?"

"His mind," Kiza giggles, her own adrenaline on high.

"You can always just program him for guard duty, You Majesty, maybe increase his memory capacity." Bob glances at Gemma, all his gears a-flutter.

"Oh, never! Then he wouldn't be...Bob!" Gemma gives the slightest of shrugs as the train jerks and jumps beneath their feet.

"I've never quite understood the purpose of the Bob line." Bob's face falls and he looks away. Jupiter shakes her head.

"This is going to be a long ride."


	11. Chapter 11

Aleksa wipes her fingers along the what appears to be an oven, grimacing at the dusty lines on their tips, then frowns deeply as she wipes the dust on her pants, as if wiping away a habit from another life. Instead, she peers at the unfamiliar symbols on the wood inlaid wall, a large black slab behind her glittering like covered with stars. Everything about the room speaks 'kitchen' to her, but she hasn't a clue where to begin.

"My Lady, how can I help you?" Her cheeks pinken at Stinger's words as he catches her leaning over in bewilderment, then she places her fists on her hips at his over the top words.

"I'm just trying to take something to Vladie to eat."

"You shouldn't need to. His quarter should have everything he needs."

"And miss an excuse to check up on him?"

"Ah," Stinger grins. "In that case, allow me." He steps forward and Aleksa moves aside, but not so quickly that his hand brushes against her own arm. He pauses, then resumes pushing a few lights on the wall, which pulls back revealing a plate.

"That looks like meatloaf? And potatoes?"

"Close enough," Stinger admits. "I did live on Earth for many of your years." Aleksa looks like she might want to hear more, but she has a goal to keep. "I've tucked him up nice and snug," and he winks, and with a nod of his head motions Aleksa to follow.

In a gleaming white corridor crouches Aknet, just a hair too large for the ample space.

"I," Aleksa begins haltingly, then put on a brave face and an effort to be hospitable, "had wondered where you had gone."

"Guarding trouble," the sargon growled. Stinger palms the door open. The room beyond is not nearly as elaborate as the chambers above, yet still filled with a pair of large chaise loungers each adorned with cream puff pillows all atop marble floors shot with silver veins. And amidst the pillows, a disheveled, unshaven Vladie.

"Ahhh! Oh, Aleksa! What is this? Why am I a prisoner?

"You are not a prisoner," Aleksa says, although she isn't unhappy with the thought.

"Then why is that dragon thing out there?"

"She is keeping an eye on you."

"And she needs a job," Stinger replies evenly. Vladie opens his mouth to let more words out.

"Look, I brought you something to eat, OK?"

"What are you all up to? Why can't I be up there with you? I'm so bored! I tried to figure out that TV thing," and he points to a chest height dark panel set into the wall, "but all I get is some weird, smelly goo!" Aleksa rather shoves the plate at him, and he accepts it absently, absorbed by the angst of his complaints. Stinger nods to Aknet, just visible beyond the open door.

"If you would just ask, the sargon knows how everything works around here. Like that," and he points to a large mirrored surface. Vladie peers around him, his mouth slightly ajar at the thought of talking to the lizard in the hallway. He swallows hard, then jumps when she speaks like a load of falling gravel.

"You do not seem like a warrior to me, or I would engage you in battle tactics." Vladie pales.

"Battle tactics?"

"An honorable way to pass the time. Practicing simulations." Vladie fidgets, then perks at as a new thought hits him. Stinger turns away, then places a finger to the crystal on his neck.

"Simulations?" He sits forward, intrigued. "Like, video games?"

Aleksa's disparaging shake of her head is interrupted by Stinger's words.

"There's been a slight problem."

"Problem?"

"Jupiter and Caine have gotten separated from their guard."


	12. Chapter 12

Equally as untouched and little used as the grime covered surface, the sim parked behind the wide curve of counter is old, dust sprinkling the gray cloth draped over its shoulders, dust coloring its bald scalp as if a fine fuzz of hair, all creating a semblance of extreme age and extremely uncertain gender. Not that a sim needs a gender, Jupiter reminds herself, but most had seemed to bear one, probably for the comfort of the humans they served. The sim's head is bent over a sheave resting before it, and it appears to be leafing through the content, and, possibly, laughing.

Jupiter, standing at the fore of her little troop, clears her throat until the sim glances up from the humorous read.

"I want to see that last document that Seraphi... that I... viewed in the Archives." The sim raised its head with some reluctance and even more stiffness, as if it hadn't needed to look up for uncounted years.

"Really? Your Majesty," the sim wheezes a bit belatedly.

"Yes," Jupiter replies firmly.

"Dates?" Jupiter gapes a moment, and Caine rubs his nose to suppress a grin.

"I, couldn't say for sure." She realizes she hadn't ever really considered that. "Um," and she turns to Caine, "couldn't have been much before Titus being born, right?" Caine can only offer a sheepish shrug, and when Jupiter turns with a questioning look at the rest, they shuffle a bit until Gemma responds.

"Your Majesty, Titus Abrasax is known to be seven thousand, seven hundred years old. His exact age, however, is a secret many of the entitled families keep well hidden."

"Ok, then," Jupiter nods and returns to face the aged sim. "How does any sheaves I viewed between, say, eight thousand years ago and my death sound. Recurrence, here," she points a thumb at herself in response to the sims quizzical tilt of head.

"And when was your date of death?" Jupiter gaped again, realizing she really doesn't have anything so firm to offer.

"How about until the current date?" Kiza interjects over Jupiter's shoulder. "That should cover it, I think." Jupiter nods, just a little irritated that she didn't think of that, and a touch jealous at the genuine smile her suggestion had earned from Caine. The sim closed its eyes, and its lids fluttered as if calculating.

"Place your seal here," and it points, with a bit of a creaking shoulder, to squat pillar that rose from the dusty surface of the desk. "Retrieval." Then drops its head slowly back to its sheave.

"That's it?"

"Yes." The sim replies without looking up. So, they wait. And they wait. And just when Jupiter starts to fidget, a plain, a grinding sound emanates from one of the long hallways, and a crane of sorts carrying a long, flat metallic box comes ratches into the room, and drops the box with a 'thunk' on the counter. Jupiter pauses, just looking.

"Well, are you going to open it or not?" says the sim with a wheeze.

"Oh, right," Jupiter says chagrined, with not a small dose of discomfort at perusing this in front of everyone. She opens the dusty lid, lifting a sheave with her right hand to lay it beside her on the table. With her left, she reaches for a second, but as soon as the first sheave touches the table, blaring clarion bell rings out, and lights begin to flash all around them. She drops both sheaves and rapidly covers her ears, ducking slightly as the sound attacks from all directions. Caine also covers his sensitive ears and grimaces. In contrast to her previous appearance of great age, the sim snaps to attention and snatches the offending sheave.

"Yyou can't have that!" it yells over the din. "That's forbidden!"

"What do you mean?" Jupiter yells back. Behind her, Gemma takes a fighting stance, scanning for danger. Bob's ear buds whir and his face carries that 'I'm so fired' expression again.

"That's a log from the greatest criminal humanity has ever known!"

"What?" Jupiter yells again, not quite catching the words.

"The mad man who created the gene plague! No one is allowed to read that!"

"Ok, OK, I didn't mean to!"

"But you did! You already did!" The sim slams the sheave on the counter, pointing at a glowing Abrasax seal rising from glassy surface.

"I think," Caine growls, grabbing both women's arms, "we need to get out of here!"

"But," begins Jupiter, straining backward, but Caine's grip is too strong. The siren begins to whir more rapidly, demanding a response. A creaky sim, more robot than android, rumbles from a side corridor into the main chamber, raising its twin arm guns.

"Let's go," Kiza yells, wrenching free from Caine to grab Jupiter's other arm. They race towards the tall double doors which are already groaning shut. Caine, Jupiter, and Kiza spring through, Gemma close behind, but Bob, confusion clouding his features, hesitates. At the last second, Gemma sprints back, grabs him by the waist, and drags him through just as the doors shut, clipping the edge of his neatly tailored suit coat.

Beyond the doors, the crush of old buildings feels more like a corridor than a street. Bits of broken sims, sheave glass, and ancient grit litter the narrow street.

"That was close," Jupiter sighs.

"It's not over yet." Caine nods toward the gaps into what is not quite sky, not quite ceiling, where rank upon rank of distant, dark dots grow until they are revealed as rank up rank of black upon black. Some ride humming floaters. Some sport pairs of glistening bronze wings.

"Those are Aegis!" Kiza gasps. Caine steps in front of Jupiter, speaking over his shoulder.

"Holy crap!" Jupiter exclaims under her breath.

"Stay here. Don't move, not a muscle. I'll speak to them. I can explain."

"Ok." Jupiter agrees weakly, perfectly happy not to budge an inch. "Waiting here is good."

"I can..." Gemma begins.

"Stay," Caine commands, implying, without stating, 'in case anything should go wrong.' He raises his hands far from his holstered energy guns, flicks his wings open slightly to ensure they are perfectly visible, then calls up at the leading edge of flighted legionaries. "I need to speak with your commander." He steps forward slowly, shielding the rest from view.

"You are?"

"Caine Wise." The commander nods.

"I've heard of you. Are you covering this disturbance?"

"There's been a misunderstanding," Caine explains as he takes to the air. Three strokes of his wings, when a bolt streaks from behind him, striking the commander on one wing, and he drops. Caine whirls around, seeking the shooter. His head snaps back, realizing the Aegis are raising their weapons to fire. He is torn, unwilling to fight against the Aegis, even as his shoulders and his wings flicker with the urge to fight, to protect. Jupiter and Kiza duck as more shots seem to be firing just over their own shoulders.

"Down!" Gemma yells, dragging a dazed Bob to the ground. Caine is caught in the open, the fury of cross fire forcing him down. He soars sideways, angling towards Jupiter, but a shot hits a building sending bits of exploding shrapnel which knock him to the ground.

"Caine!" Jupiter yells, rising with every intention of running to his side.

"No!" Gemma jumps up and pulls Jupiter back. As she does so, an Aegis bolt tears through her shoulder, severing one arm. Another tears through her thigh. For a moment, she stares at the twin damaged limbs, before she falls heavily sideways. Kiza tries to catch her, but a sim, especially a martial sim, is much more solid than they might appear. Kiza staggers beneath the sudden weight and Gemma ends up laying haphazardly against a wall.

Pinned down, Jupiter scans for any sign of a path to Caine. Kiza swivels her head between the Aegis fighters above, their ranks split and taking cover on roof tops and behind walls and towers, and behind where shots spit upward, the assailants numerous, yet unseen.

"This way!" a deep, seductive female voice cries from the shadows of one of the crumbling buildings. "Your Majesty, this way!" A gloved hand beckons.

"This may be our only choice," Kiza cautions, gun in hand and equally unsure where to fire as Caine had been.

"And you, you think we should follow this mystery hand? What about Caine?!"

"He is safest where he is." Jupiter looks helplessly in Caine's last known direction, chewing hard on her cheek. "The Aegis will want answers. If we accept this chance, for now, Your Majesty, maybe we will be able to provide them." Jupiter turns back with a decisive nod.

"Bob, Gemma." She motions to Bob to help Gemma, which he accepts with a cross between panic and glee. "I'll find you again," she whispers towards her unseen Caine, then sprints low towards the offer of escape.


	13. Chapter 13

"I understand we have a common enemy," Kalique opens with a confident lift of her chin, which belies the cold pit settling in her stomach.

"That does not mean we share a common goal," Morkenin replies, her threat as clear as the diamonds sparkling in her black intricate array of midnight braids. Flickering akin to the light of her flashing blue eyes, she is draped in a glacial blue sheath, over which floats a fine silken net cascading from her brow and down her limbs, splashing about her feet like pristine waterfalls. Ice sickles of iridescent pearls rope her arms and chest like a chilly breast plate, while her fingers and bare feet are tipped with long, sharp, silver nails.

For her part, Kalique wears a delicate net of creamy white petals, the heart of each flower a blood red ruby ringed with cerise garnet, the whole effect that of a hundred eyes watching in all directions, the gold of her long gown glimmering between. Rubies and garnets flashed from the coils of her rich brown hair, a single, large garnet ringed with golden beads resting above her breasts.

"Drawing Jupiter Jones into your web did not proceed as planned." Morkenin shows no surprise, but she finds herself reevaluating this Entitled child as more clever than she deemed. She might yet prove as ruthless as Seraphi had once been. Instead, she offers the barest shrug, setting her pearls swaying.

"She missed her appointment at the courts. I am within my rights to set a suite against Abrasax after all."

"Money is not our concern, yours or mine, cousin." Kalique lays stress upon that final word, for they are indeed cousins, of a sort. "You requested this meeting. Speak plainly." Morkenin nods her assent, and turns to face Kalique.

"This recurrence of yours is meddlesome. She threatens the order of the universe."

"In this, we may find agreement."

"And yet?" Morkenin drives home, hearing the hesitation underlying Kalique's assent.

"She remains an Abrasax, by law, and by heritage."

"And you find it difficult to move against her?" Morkenin watches Kalique with a predatory gaze, seeking the true depth of her feelings.

"I have yet to determine the extent of the threat. But," Kalique raises a finger against Morkenin's implied direction, "I have not ruled out any possibility."

"So you wait?"

"I watch." Morkenin nods, once, and turns away.

"We will meet again." And she shimmers from view as she walks from their shared vision.


	14. Chapter 14

"Where are we going?" Jupiter calls out to the gray swathed figure who seems to stay just far enough ahead to be out of reach. The warren of alleys, rusted doors, and peeling corridors ended in a space that could be a warehouse, or a rat's nest.

"Just here," and the figure turns around, a woman with wide green eyes and delicately heart shaped face. She smiles slightly, revealing a set of dainty fangs, just as a field of blue beams snaps on like bars all around Jupiter and her party.

"Of course, you did," Jupiter sighs, stepping back from the sparking array. Kiza raises her gun, but hesitates firing, not knowing what it might set off among all the boxes and canisters and reams of cloth stacked against every corner and every post.

"I will tell my Lord that his guests have arrived." And the woman in gray glides out of the room.

"Guests?" Jupiter yells as a distant door clangs shut.

"Are we prisoners?" Bob asks, his eyes wide and his mouth in a little 'oh' of apprehension.

"Definitely," Jupiter replies, her gaze following the line of the glowing bars from floor to ceiling, and arcing around them. "Bob, put Gemma down. Gemma, aren't you able to communicate with Captain Tsing?"

"Not currently." Bob lists sideways while he struggles to release Gemma's arm from around his neck and prop her against one of the steel support beams. "A damping field was erected since the battle began."

"Someone certainly keeps trying to kill me," Jupiter muses, hands on her hips.

"Balem," Kiza breathes out.

"No," Jupiter flinches at the name, but replies firmly, "he's dead."

"What if he's just seriously burned, hiding down here in the ancient city?" Bob gazes around with a lot puppy dog expression. Gemma, sitting somewhat sideways where Bob more or less dropped her, shakes her head with a negative.

"No human could have survived that. The Aegis record was quite explicit."

"But," Kiza fidgets her gun back in the holster at her hip, "Captain Tsing told Caine about the attackers on Earth carrying Balem's signature."

"What?" Jupiter turns abruptly to face Kiza, her face a mask of shock, with a hint of betrayal. "Balem's signature?" Kiza looks to Jupiter with despair.

"I thought he would have told you."

"Not a word. But he told you?" Jupiter winces at the sound of jealousy in her own voice. She doesn't mean to say the words so harshly, or wear her insecurity so naively.

"No," Kiza says in a soft, hurt voice. "Apini's have more than just quick reflexes. You don't, you don't like me much, do you, your Majesty." More of a statement than a question. Jupiter's face falls, and a thick blanket of guilt warps around her heart.

"I don't see this is the time for sentiment," Gemma remarks. Jupiter glances at Gemma, then at the ground while struggling to pin her feelings down.

"In fact, I don't see a better time. Kiza," Jupiter says gently, "I actually like you, a lot. I'm just jealous. It's stupid, and unworthy, but sometimes that feeling just jumps out at me. You have this long, easy relationship with Caine, and I've barely gotten to know him. My heart knows he and I have a different relationship, but there are times I get reminded that you have so much more in common,. You know this world, you have a history, you're going to be a Legionnaire, and I just feel left... what?" At the last words, Kiza's eyes drop and she takes a ragged breath, turning away. "Did I flub up again?"

"Just that," and Kiza reaches within her Aegis jacket, "I won't be like him, not now," and pulls out a very old sheave. "This is all my fault," she gasps out, turning the length of glass over and over in her hand, then holding it out for Jupiter. Jupiter examines it closely.

"This is the sheave that... librarian... wouldn't let us see! How did you get it?"

"Quick hands of an Apini." Kiza shrugs with a weak grin.

"You stole it," Bob groans. "Is this what I have to look forward to in your service, Your Majesty?" Jupiter favors him a grimace, then ignores the frantic whirring of his ear bud.

"And you think that will keep you out of the Legionaires?"

"It will," Gemma interjects. "The ethic tests are quite rigorous."

"You knew?" Jupiter asks with a hint of wonder. Kiza nods. "You better be worth it," Jupiter growls at the sheave. "We'll find a way to fix this, Kiza. Being an Entitled must be good for something. Now, let's see what's so special about this sheave." Her nose wrinkles as she places her wrist over the sheave, hoping it will activate. The sheave hums in her hand with a blue glow in response.

"Isn't that forbidden?" Bob gasps.

"Forbidden often just means something the rich and powerful don't want the poor and powerless to find out," she replies, her eyes rapidly scanning the information that starts to flow up from the screen.

"Someone's coming," Gemma hisses.

"Damn." Jupiter looks up, then springs over next to Kiza, hiding the sheave behind their collective backs.

The woman in gray walks smooth as satin sheets from the shadows, flanked by two heavy shouldered guards.

"My Lord will see you now. No," and she motions the Jupiter's companions aside, "just Jupiter. This way, your Majesty," she says with a hint of irony. Jupiter slides the sheave into Kiza's hands unseen. Her heart thuds hard in her chest, still she lifts her chin, squares her shoulders, and steps forward where the bars dematerialized a human sized gap. "This way."

Jupiter steps behind her, turning her head slightly to give Kiza the briefest nod, before she, too, disappears into the shadows.


	15. Chapter 15

"This is a familiar turn of events." Stinger gazes down on Caine. Caine looks up from his cell with a mixture of chagrin and urgency. Behind Stinger, Captain Tsing's face is dour and stone hard.

"They've taken Jupiter."

"The way I hear it, you were fighting on the side of rebels." Caine frowns deeply. Stinger knows full well this couldn't be true, and he grins. "Come on, let's go find her."

"I should have received a report from Gemma." Captain Tsing's concerns have not been alleviated by the pairs convivial reuinion. "As far as Aegis intelligence can determine, Jupiter has incited a rebellion."

"She wouldn't," Caine takes a defensive step forward, intending to argue. Captain Tsing folds her arms as she relates the current state of affairs.

"Last report saw her entering an alley, following a supposed rebel. The Aegis must presume she is a threat." Stinger turns to join the argument, but Captain Tsing raises her palm, demanding their silence. "She is an unknown. She abandoned her guard and missed her appointed court appearance. There is evidence she accessed a highly classified ledger. My communication with a member of the Aegis is severed. The only reason she hasn't been labeled a traitor to the regime is her entitled status. That could change."

"Then we need to find her before it does." Caine shrugs his long black coat over his bronze wings. Stinger's previous grin fades to concern. Until that moment, he hadn't been aware of the depth of the issues before them.

"My daughter is with them."

"We believe they are somewhere in the deeps, in the ancient city."

"So we know where to start," Caine replies, and angles out of the cell past Stinger and Captain Tsing with purpose driving his stride.


	16. Chapter 16

"Here." Before a pair of high, hammered into shape doors, the lady in gray motions Jupiter aside. From an obscure crate, she lifts a length of gleaming cloth. "Your Majesty," she holds out the gown across both arms, and speaks those words with a disrespecting tilt of her head.

"What's this for?" Jupiter eyes the lavender and blue slithering folds with suspicion. She had recently acquired the wisdom that silks and sequins were tied with bows of hidden danger and packaged inside mazes of disaster.

"My Lord would not have you appear in so drab a costume, especially that which carries the scent of Aegis." Jupiter ignores the slight that she was a poser in a costume, though she often felt that way the past months, or the hint that she smelled bad, though she wouldn't have minded a hot shower and change out of the blast dust covered clothes.

"I'm fine in this." The woman holds the dress closer, staring with her great green eyes, the pupils large and liquid black. Jupiter frowns at the vast length of fabric, then dares to return that pointed stare. What would Seraphi do, she muses, replaying what she had come to know of that woman from the myriad of sheaves Titus has secreted to her. Which Seraphi? A Queen of the Universe? Or the disheveled, regret filled woman who couldn't die? Not that much of a toss up, Jupiter decides, evaluating her audience. Queen it is. That Seraphi, she would wear the gown, own the gown, and take charge of every nuance of the situation. Jupiter grasps the length of silk and pulls it with a commanding swish into her own arms. "Goons? Gone." The woman huffs, but motions the heavies back with a flick of her wrist. Jupiter slides the gown over her head, and so encased in a flowing fabric sleeve, she wriggles her own black shirt off and before slipping her arms through the delicate collar of thin straps. Beneath the folds, however, she keeps her leather trousers, and her gravity boots, hidden by the fact the dress was easily a size too large, just in case. She twists around to view the lay of the dress. Where once she might have gauged the quality of the cut or the effect of the drape, now she assessed how much the purple silk would constrict her movements, how the frothy periwinkle train would twist around her legs should she need to fly.

"Hey," she pulls sharply away when the other woman takes the length of Jupiter's hair in her hand, but she only clasps the thick lock tighter, shaking out the worst of the gray dust, then winding it between her fingers into a haphazard pile on Jupiter's head, balanced into place with a length of gold beads and invisible pins. Jupiter cannot see herself, but is quite sure she has been dressed as a mockery, a travesty of the wealth of an entitled. She raises her chin higher while a hovering chariot glides to pause beside her.

"That used to be me." Jupiter jumps when the woman hisses in her hear, nodding to the sim resting like a ship's figurehead, nestled among a rusty ironwork of lacy flowers and leafy tendrils. "Then My Lord found me, found me worth more. I wonder what he sees in you?" With her raised palm, she motions Jupiter to ascend the chariot. Jupiter steps up, and the chariot lists dangerously sideways, before she hops up into the center, where it wobbles before settling. The gray clad woman takes up her place along side, fingers caressing the protruding edge of her gun, for effect. As the flanking guards swing open the doors, she pushes back the hood of her cloak, revealing her own hair to be a mix of silvery gray and lustrous black, and the splice brand upon her neck. Jupiter nods to herself, as if she shouldn't be so surprised.

As the procession hitches forward, she realizes the depth of her own assumptions. Lining the twilight avenues was a dizzying array of splices of every size, shade, face and form. Jupiter forces herself to remain looking resolutely forward, yet her ears listen for any sound of fighting, for the rush of wings, for the menacing growl that could only mean Caine had arrived. She knew he was searching. He would find her.

The bleak streets, twilight gray from a diffuse light that hinted at the great depths beneath layer upon layer of city pressing from above, hung low with a criss-crossing lattice of heavy black cables, goes on and on, while hundreds of jeering, scowling faces tear away at Jupiter. At last the lurid procession slows, and halts before what must once have been a majestic gate, now buried by time and dust.

She'd fought beside Caine. She had fought without him. This time, she would be fighting alone.

Grappling with deepening self doubt, the strength which steeled Jupiter's heart and set her eyes ablaze was forged from the cold steel that was her backbone, and she whispers.

"Balem."


	17. Chapter 17

Titus Abrasax reclines upon one of his many cushioned chaise, draped in a comfortable swath of loose, midnight folds and pants of well fitted black leather. Though his body bears an attitude of intense ennui, his lips are turned in a more thoughtful, insightful frown. He offers his sister a lazy gaze upward, where she paces.

"Tell you what?" he inquires with deceptive mildness.

"Everything," Kalique demands, stopping to face him. Though she wears a silk of richest peach, shot through with citrine glass, and her hair is expertly curled and perfumed, yet she resembles little more than a tired, beleaguered woman, as did her mother, so many ledgers ago. "I demand it. You know more. You always do."

"No, I don't think so."

"I don't know why I bother," she says as she turns away, equally for the dramatic effect as her desire to ignore his presence. But she cannot ignore this favored younger brother, although, there are times, she has wondered if she could kill him. If she had to. It was something every entitled had to keep in mind. "You always do bait your traps with words."

"Are you saying I have a gilded tongue?"

"I'm saying you're a unrepentant liar." Titus shrugs and tips himself upright before standing briskly to face Kalique. He speaks with a gentle menace.

"Mother always lay her lies out in plain sight. If you knew where where to look. If you were willing." Something behind his tone caught Kalique's attention, and she glances at him with a considering eye. As usual, she recognizes he has told her everything, and still nothing.

"Do you seek to take my place? Undermining me is a perfect way to insure that." She shakes her head, dark curls rolling like gentle waves. "Now is not the time to revel in family squabbling. We must portray a solid front on this issue."

"Which issue should I pluck from our garden of issues? We always tend so many, nurture them so assiduously." Kalique lifts her chin with pique at his flippant words. He waits, forcing her to put a name to her purpose. Kalique struggles a moment over which image her mind conjures when she thinks of her mother, of her recurrence, before she nearly spits out a single word.

"Jupiter."

"Ah, that. Your lines of communication are surely better than mine, given my current state. I should be asking you. Your conference? With her great and ancient Empress Morkenin?"

"I can't read her, and I certainly can't trust her. But I believe we can use her as an ally."

"New friends?"

"For as long as it suites us."

"Good, maybe I should invite them to dinner."


	18. Chapter 18

Caine soars down onto the twilight ground, gun in hand and sweeping, on the alert for any attack. Above him, a handful of black on black Aegis enter through a glistening gap leading from the expanse of levels above. Three of the handful sport wide bronze wings, while the remaining two glide on silent gravity packs. Caine tucks his wings even as he hovers in a crouch, then drops behind a wall already blasted with gray and white dust. Behind him, Stinger lands in an equally protective crouch. The remaining two winged warriors alight a few meters farther to Caine's left, and the pair on gliders to his right.

Caine sets the twin guns sideways on the ground, raises his nose, closes his eyes, and sniffs. Faint, hidden beneath the smell of fear and sizzled steel and blood. Turning his head to try again, that scent he could follow down the trail of forever, but his concentration is broken by a huffing grunt. He swivels his head to face the intrusion.

"Problem?" He whispers back to the heavily muscled, grim faced Legionnaire. This warrior carries his battle wounds with a rough pride. Even if he could, Gulo would not have his cells replaced with lesser stuff.

"I don't like you. I don't trust you." His companion, a long scar twisting one half of her leathery face then disappearing into the short gray mop of hair, nods her assent.

"Any man who's been to the Dead Lands never comes back the same."

"The Dead Lands are what they are. I was, we were, pardoned."

"The pardon of an entitled." Gulo sneers with all of his fat, yellow teeth.

"Just what did you have to do the buy your freedom?" The woman makes a lewd gesture down the side of her hip.

"Defeat a villain, save a Queen, fight for truth and justice." Captain Tsing's stinging words and commanding presence silence further dissenting banter. Caine nods to her as the other Legionaires grugdingly give way. "What we do. Posts." And the pair take up their guard again, but Caine still caught the sound of 'girlfriend' and 'rebel.' "But off the record," Tsing whispers for Caine's ears only, "Jupiter certainly did appear to be on the side shooting at us."

"That just isn't possible," Caine whispers back with an angry grimace. "This is all a mistake." Stinger leans over, directing his question with the nose of his weapon.

"Which way?" Tsing gives a terse nod, and Caine clears his mind to allow his senses to roam the scene. He perks at the delicious scent, and begins to move.

"There," Stinger murmurs, waiting for his Captain's command. Tsing motions, and the team slinks towards the gaping, dark mouth of the alleyway.


	19. Chapter 19

Jupiter inhales a deep, steadying breath, then steps with a determined stride beneath the tall, heavy arch of thick, gray stone block and rust flecked, twisting steel. As she passes, she glides a single index finger along the age pitted rock, peeling away a thick layer of grime to reveal a hint of cream colored stone. Wiping the dirt clad finger along the fine cloth of her gown, she spares a quick glance over her shoulder where the two heavies and the woman wrapped in silver and gray, rippling folds follow close behind.

Before her, darkness molds itself into the shadowy form of an immense chamber. Multiple thin beams of light point upward to shed a hint of illumination on a distant glittering vault of a ceiling, held aloft with girders of blackened steel baring hints of whorls and curls of scroll work. Her eyes follow the intrusive length of a cable, thick as her own torso, piercing the roof like some passing serpent. As silent as the room is dark, only the soft echo and crunch of her boots on the ample grit scattered across the floor. The sound of her own breathing vies for space with the pounding of her heart.

At once, the lights move, shift, swiveling rapidly downward. Jupiter raises an arm, shielding and squinting against the blinding flash as the lights wash over her, to settle around her like bars of a cage. At the same moment, the echoed silence breaks into a cacophony of howling cries, bringing to her mind that time she had let Vladie talk her into coming with him to a party but was really because he was afraid to go to a wrestling match downtown by himself. Blinking, Jupiter's eyes slowly adjust and indeed, she sees how the floor stretches around her in a broad circle, enclosed by rows of seats rising into the shadows high overhead, and every row is filled with faces rolling and roiling like foam on the river, elephantine, serpentine, wolverine, canine, sargon, and bodies and faces she couldn't even begin to divine their origin, calling and yelling down, at her.

'Maybe I made it to court after all,' she thinks, sensing the heavy weight of impending judgement hanging in the air.

Swallowing hard, she turns away from the excited crowd and notices, to her left, a lone sliver cuts a wide slice from the rings of tiers, expanding to a platform where, just barely in her sight, perches a single upholstered bench, flanked on either side by a twin pair of hunched, hideously jointed pink figures sporting over large, glistening black eyes. Jupiter's skin crawls at the sight of the Keepers. She had almost forgotten the woman behind her, but now that gray swathed figure shoves Jupiter farther into the center of the ring of lights, baring her gently pointed fangs in a sneering grin, as if sensing Jupiter's revulsion, before she lifts her silver and gray wrap in a swirl of cloth and, with inhuman grace and strength, leaps up the sheer wall where the platform joins the level of the floor, then settles herself on one of the low, gilded rolled arms of the chaise. She leans forward, resting one long nailed hand on what Jupiter had, previously distracted by the disturbing presence of the ungainly Keepers, mistaken for a pile of off white cloth.

Now she realizes that pile actually swathes a figure, seated upon that gold and silver chaise. The form is hidden deep within the shadows of a heavily embroidered hood, cream on cream, falling to a long, shimmering cape which flows down the cushions and into milky puddles across the floor. Her breath catches in her throat, and her heart pounds harder. The howls of the crowd beat upon her like storm tossed waves. 'What would Seraphi do? What would Seraphi do?' she chants internally, propping up her failing courage.

"My Lord." The woman in gray lowers her head slightly, the vaulted chamber amplifying her liquid voice. Beside her, the cloth of the hood shivers, the figure turns as it rises, the hood sliding back with a familiar shrug. The hairs on the back of Jupiter's neck prickling with alarm.

Her lips twist into a scowl as she turns to face the pale white, pointed features of Chickanery Night. His eyes pass over Jupiter, but she catches a deeply satisfied gleam before he turns to face those gathered in the room.

Chickanery savors the assemblage with a thin smile. The crowd erupts with crackling cheers and thunder of thumping fists and feet. Eyes riveted on him, the woman in gray rocks slightly, her fingers digging deep into the upholstered chaise. After a moment soaking in the mood of the massive chamber, Night raises his arms slightly, and the deafening din fades to an approving rumble.

"Isn't he adorable?" the woman purrs, running her fingers through the tips of his braid. "I could just eat him up."

"Not now, Felicia," Night mutters sideways under his breath, but makes no move to remove her hand. With a burst of bravado, born somewhat by her hours spent within Seraphi's journals, Jupiter musters a voice as calm and commanding as she dares.

"Where is Balem?"

"Balem?" Night leaps forward from his throne like chaise, bristling with indignation. "Balem?"

"Are you so afraid to face me?" Chickanery hustles to the edge of the dais, scowling down at Jupiter. "Still sending your lackeys to do your dirty work?"

"I am master, here!" Chickanery hisses down.

"Don't be coy. I know that the ships which attacked my company on Earth bore Balem's seal!" Her arms wide, Jupiter turns round and round, calling out into the depths of the chamber. "Show yourself, Balem Abrasax!"

"Balem is dead!" Chickanery leaps from the platform. Even as his cloak flutters f and falling to the ground, and the scene changes so abruptly and so entirely that Jupiter staggers. Fire explodes around her, and she ducks and swiftly raises an arm to protect her face. The landing where she stands tilts into the fiery abyss. And hanging there, eyes wide wide with realization of his impending mortality, Balem reaches out. She falls to her knees and comes face to face with, herself. Clinging to to the edge of the failing platform. She scrabbles back and shuts her eyes tight. All around her, the scene stills, caught in that moment of terror.

"Feeling a bit off balance?" He leans over her, his midnight black tailored jacket briefly blocking the glare of flames.

'Just a recording,' she reminds herself. 'Not really happening.' She opens one eye at a time, forcing her shaking limbs to stand. Chickanery faces the paused image of Balem, his eyes glittering.

"Balem is well and truly dead. No one could survive that fall, those flames." Jupiter is dizzy and fear stabs her heart, yet she also recalls that this was the moment she fought back. When she refused to let Balem control her destiny.

"I did." She speaks softly, looking down with no small amount of awe that she was, indeed, saved from that inferno. She notes the terror on Balem's face as the images inched along, slipping slowly until his fingers no longer found purchase, the cry forcing its way from his lungs. Mr. Night's next words interrupt her morbid reverie.

"Because of me." Her lips curls as she spits her words at Night.

"Because of Caine." Night's response is an unpleasant grin as he leans in closer.

"Because of Caine, because of me."

"You're not making sense."

"Because you are as incapable of following my maze as any other of these entitleds. Balem Abrasax." The name rolled off his tongue with contempt. "My machinations kept your world embroiled in fruitless political turmoil. I managed all operations of the harvesting station. My spy network located your gene print! Mine! Easy enough to garner new loyal subjects when you abandoned them after Balem's demise. They crave a strong leader to guide their miserable little lives."

"Not yours?"

"A select few are allowed renewal. Very few."

"And with Balem dead, your access ran out."

"You clearly would never supply it."

"Morkenin won't oblige? She's down a splice, after all."

"This is my chance to control my own destiny! You can have no concept, ground beneath the heal of others who deem themselves your betters, perpetually hiding who you really are, surrounded by riches you are denied!"

"Actually, I know a great deal about that." Night rants on unheeding of the compassion in Jupiter's voice.

"I have been working towards this end for generations of your inconsequential people. Your intervention merely required I amend my time table for the rebellion. Unfortunately, you have become quite the underground hero, almost a legend. The reincarnated Queen who loved a splice! What a romantic piece of drivel. But I can use every twist to my advantage, and every rebellion rallies around a martyr." From behind his black over jacket, he withdraws a slim, silver weapon, aiming it at Jupiter's head.

"Martyr?" Jupiter takes an involuntary step back.

"Titus is well known to have plotted against you once before." He walks with stealthy steps around her, as if seeking a preferred target. "Perhaps Kalique, destroying the mother she once adored." Jupiter grasps upon the obvious.

"But your troops. They've seen me. They would know the truth." Night shrugs. Behind and below him, Balem's image was slipping farther away. She carefully looked away from the terror written upon her own.

"Truth is malleable. Blanking is effective beyond mere tersies, particularly in hands as skilled as mine. I can blank you. An hour. A day. A month. How about three months? You'd forget everything, Caine, being Queen, all gone." The distress at the thought of losing her memories of Caine must have played across her face, for Chickanery smiles without humour. Jupiter wonders if Seraphi's skills are enough to help her this time. She'd spent so many hours perusing those ledgers, she had begun to feel like she did know her, did understand her. But now, she wonders if maybe, just maybe, she needs to think like someone else, some fast talker, someone who could persuade anyone into anything, someone more like... Valdie?

"You certainly could. You could blank me, or kill me," she replies, more to the gun than to the man, "but, then, you would lose the information I have."

"You have nothing I could use. You know nothing."

"You're almost right. I know next to nothing. But Seraphi, she knew a lot. And what she knew, I know." Night sneers his disbelief. "I have her ledgers."

"She lived near to a hundred thousand years. You could never access that wealth of knowledge."

"I stuck with the good parts. Wouldn't I make a better poster child if I were alive? How an entitled willingly joined your cause?"

Skeptical, yet Night appears to be considering her words when the woman appears, clutching her robes about her, her face wracked with worry.

"My Lord," Felicia interrupts with a hiss, and the fiery images dissolve around them so that Jupiter is once more standing on the floor of the vaulted chamber, surrounded by hungry, angry eyes. "Aegis have landed in the streets." She jerks her head, indicating the levels above. "The lycantant hunts." Her gaze shifts between the gleaming gun and Jupiter, whose heart soars, knowing Caine will find her, then sinks just as quickly, knowing Caine will find her. And the Aegis with him. And her quest will likely come to a screeching halt. She sucks on her cheek, thinking fast. The sounds of the crowd provide her with welcome inspiration.

"What will it be, Mr. Night," Jupiter calls out loudly. "Will you let me join your rebellion?" She pauses to let the question hang in the air. "Will you let me show you the secret to more life for all? More time for everyone!" And she turns, her wide arms encompassing the gathered splices.

"You would do that?" the gray woman asks wide eyed. "You can do that?" Jupiter answers her by answering the row upon row of hopeful faces.

"I can."

Night falters, then leans close to her ear.

"You will be the voice of my rebellion, or your friends will die."

"You will see to mine and my friends survival," she replies equally quietly, "or Caine's revenge will be horrific." She matches his glare with her own.

"We must move, my Lord," the woman plucking at his arm, eyes darting towards the door as if sensing Cain could leap through at any second.

"Get them." He aims a terse nod to the gray woman. "And quickly. And you," he smiles with all his teeth, "will share with me everything you claim to know."

"Not here, not now," she says sidelong with a brief nod at the roars of the crowd. Suddenly, the din lowers as confusion rises, the sound of blasters outside in the streets. Bodies fall over each other, leaping between the tiers, climbing upward and downward, some in panic, some with determination and drawn weapons. Chickanery Night skitters towards the dais, poised as if to clamber up.

Jupiter hesitates, seeking any sight of Kiza, or Gemma or Bob. Night glances at her, frustration, and a hint of fear, wracking his face. He cannot leave, but his instincts will not let him stay. His greed wins the internal struggle, and he rushes back to grab Jupiter by the arm. She jerks free, ready to fight despite the silvery weapon in his hand, but at that moment Felicia and the two guards return with Jupiter's company stumbling ahead of them.

"Up," he hisses. "Get them up," and, with a surprised gasp, the two heavies heave Jupiter up onto the raised platform in a flurry of swishing silk. Night raises his gun at her while she regains her feet. Felicia rushes past them and to the chaise. She crooks one finger into the arm, and a large tile beneath the bench clicks down and out of view, revealing a narrow stair. Kiza glances up, then back at the entrance, a desire to fight back tensing her every muscle.

"This way," Jupiter calls over the cries and the rising spat of fire and smack of debris. Kiza glances between Jupiter and where she points. Her eyes widen with recognition at the man who fought against them only weeks ago. The pair of heavies reach in to grab Kiza by the waist, and she falls to a fighting crouch. "There's no time to explain! Trust me!" Jupiter yells down, ducking as a bit of wall skitters in the air above her. She grabs her skirts to keep from tripping, and disappears down the stairs. Bob with Gemma, then Kiza, confusion twisting her brows, but she allows the thickly muscles man to heave her upward, where she lands with much more grace than Bob and his Gemma burden. With a last glance at the rising chaos, Kiza races after her, and into the waiting dark.


	20. Chapter 20

Caine, slinking slow, hugs the wall which curves off to his left into the shadows of the chamber. His sensitive nostrils flare. Eyes piercing the dim light, his brows furrow, and his lip curls in a snarl, for although Jupiter's scent lingers, so too does the scent of hundreds of others, somewhere in the gloom. Over his right shoulder glides the nose of Captain Tsing's own weapon. Without turning her head, she motions to the figures behind her, Stinger and the other pair of Aegis, to move in along the opposite wall. Caine points his weapon around the chamber, indicating the enemies just beyond sight. Captain Tsing nods, aiming. Caine's head jerks upward, following Jupiter's invisible path. He indicates his intent with a flick of his chin.

Just as Caine prepares to leap up, blue blasts spark off the stone beside him.

"Down!" Captain Tsing yells out, but Caine has already reached the dais above. He ducks behind the slim shelter of a gilded chaise lounge while shots flash and stone shards fly around him. Puffs of upholstery float gently through the air. Blue bolts flare from all directions, briefly illuminating the faces of dozens of splices ringing the wide hall. The Aegis company make good use of those moments of sight, and grunts of pain, the thump of forms falling to the ground are rich rewards for their expert aim.

Caine searches, hunting for the source of Jupiter's trail, noting the thin line between the stone tiles which reveals the trap door. He sets his weapon to his side, running his fingers along the edges, when from the shadows behind him emerge first the blunt black noses of a weapon, followed by the armoured arm of a sargon. Sensing the approaching threat, Caine reaches for his gun, but the blast from the sargon sends it spinning just beyond reach. A single hand cartwheel places Caine just out of reach of the sargon, then he sweeps in low, just beneath the sargon's aim. Blue bolts smack the floor, too close. Finding the ample form of the sargon a much better shield, Caine ducks behind him. Even as the sargon turns, heedless shots from the other splice hiding among the tiers riddle him. As his bulk collapses, Caine gauges the trajectory of the falling body to the placement of the trap door, realizing that the sargon's corpse will most certainly land square upon it. Balancing on a single hand, Caine slams both feet into the dying sargon. The other splice stumbles backward, one step, then two. Falling at last, the body crushes the chaise into splinters, with only one thick, clawed hand resting over the route of Jupiter's recent escape. Snaking forward on his belly, Caine reaches the trapdoor, snatches his with his left hand while raising the trap door with his right.

"Retreat!" Captain Tsing calls from below, "we must regroup!" But Caine's form, safe enough behind the bulk of the fallen sargon, is already vanishing into the floor.


	21. Chapter 21

Like a squashed cylinder, the corridor they follow is wide with a ceiling hung low, the steel gray gloom illuminated only by globs and streaks of glowing blue issuing from some variety of noxious mold. Jupiter her nose wrinkling as if she wishes she dare squeeze it shut, balances atop one ribbed, black cable, thicker than her shoulders are wide, yet slick with moisture so that each stride threatens to slip and slide into the sluggish black goo which runs like a sickly river not far enough below. She spares a glance over her shoulder, where Kiza follows, Bob and his Gemma burden close behind. Ahead, Felicia and Night skip on through the eerie forest of hanging, looping cables, some thick as a car or thin as wire, leaping and scuttling over, between, and under the maze. The pair of heavies are not so lithe, and the cables bounce and sway beneath their weight.

Unstable on the already spare footing, Bob with his unbalanced bundle, slips.

Jupiter dives sideways, grasping Bob's wrist as he swings like a crazy pendulum, but she herself begins a steady slide forward over the side, until Kiza snatches at her calf, and there they hang. The strain pulls at Jupiter's shoulder, her face twisting with the pain. Bob's eyes are wide with fear, more so when he dares a downward glance, and notices a pale, blank eyed face rolling upward in the noxious fluid just inches below his tucked feet.

"Leave them!" Night shouts.

"Yes," Gemma says, muffled against Bob's shoulder.

"All or none," Jupiter wheezes up where Chickanery sneers back over his shoulder. With a grimace, he points to one of the heavies, and then to at the struggling, slipping knot of human, splice, and sim. Kiza's eyes go wide as their bouncing perch threatens to dislodge them for sure.

"Gemma's right," Bob says, staring into the pit of thickly running ooze. "I'm just a long out dated model. You don't need me." Jupiter opens her mouth to reject those words, even as her grip is failing, and Bob slips a little farther, when a thick fist grabs Kiza by the back of her black vest and pulls hard, while the second fist catches Bob's wrist just as Jupiter's grip gives way.

Kiza recovers her balance quickly, and reaches out to help steady Bob and Gemma, while Jupiter crouches where the heavy drops her, before climbing to her feet. She throws a scowl toward Night, but his attention, his eyes hazy and red, is taken by some unheard communication.

"Quickly." Felicia, standing where the cables converged into a fat ring, gazing upward, lit by a weak shaft of light streaming from high above, gazes upward. A wind rises, fresh air from the world above. Jupiter closes her eyes and draws in the clean scent, while the gold and black belly of a small ship emerges from above.


	22. Chapter 22

Aleksa's wears a set air of determination upon her face, yet her hands clutch each other and twist together while she walks down the long white paneled corridor. A soft thud vibrates through the hall, and she slows her steps, listening. The closer she gets, the more those thuds increase in volume until the very floor and walls resounds. Alarm rising, she breaks into a short sprint, then swings her hand frantically in front of the screen which should, once she figures it out, open the door.

"Vladie," she calls. "Vladie!" Just as she raises a fist to pound on the offending surface, it slides back, and she nearly falls into the room. To her left, the massive form of the sargon wielding an overly large sword, spins in some martial manevuer, followed by an even more complex move involving claws and tail, all aimed at attacking the tall, but frail, figure of Vladie, swinging a much smaller weapon. "No!" she cries out, "Vladie!" as the sargon completes her swing, landing like thunder.

"What?" comes a squeaking, irritated reply from behind Aleksa. Her head swivels toward the sound, momentarily bemused. He reclines amongst the cushions, grin splitting his face, fingers flying over a earth style gaming controller. "I'm on a roll!"

"What are you doing?"

"Training!"

"Well, stop!" And now she notices that, besides the luxuries of the upholstery, a hasty pile of sneakers sits upon the floor, while at least a dozen sport coats grace the arms of the couch, and leaning against the wall, the gleaming body and handle bars of a...

"Is that a motorcycle?"

"Yeah!" Valdie crows with delight. "That machine over there," and he favors a section of the wall, a large panel darker than the rest, with a quick nod, "can make anything!"

"Your cousin is missing, and you are here building trinkets?"

"No, well, yes, well, fine," and he lays the controller aside, his doppelganger stopping in mid swing, "what do you want?"

"Nothing from you," Aleksa responds more harshly than she had intended, but has no patience to make amends with Vladie. "You," and she turns to the sargon who has paused, sword resting over one shoulder, to face the two of them. Realizing how rude apprehension has left her, Aleksa takes a deep breath before continuing. "I don't believe I was given your name."

"Aknet"

"Well, Aknet, I've heard nothing. I must know. Please. Help me find out what is happening to my daughter."


	23. Chapter 23

Caine leaps forward into the steel gray gloom. His wings snap open. His eyes narrow and his sights aim upon a thin blue beam of light too far ahead. Angling his flight, he swoops low, only to pull sharply sideways to miss a cable so thin he nearly missed seeing it. He swoops low beneath a large, fat sagging, one, then loops upward and over an array converging like mating snakes. He drops to skate beneath a group woven into a crazy not, alighting onto one thick cable, but it sags beneath his weight and so ruins his graceful leap into the next flight. Thick glowing liquid stains his wings with drips of blue.

His eyes grow frantic as he realizes that a number of forms are already ascending the grav beam into what must be a ship waiting above.

A cry of warning, and he snaps his energy shield before his face, but not before a blast sings past his ear. A thin line of blood trickles down the side of his neck. With a swing sideways, he manages a full loop in the air, rapidly righting himself and angling beneath the main tangle of cables. Just as he lifts back up, shield glowing against the blank gray of the corridor, Jupiter enters the beam. Catching sight of Caine, she leans forward, bathed in blue. His vision narrows to that sight of her, only her, and his body surges forward, but she is already rising, trapped within the beam. She raises her hand slightly, one finger as if asking him to wait, and she mouths two words, then disappears from sight.

Redoubling his efforts, he uses his hands as assists to pull and push as he scrambles through the last tangle of cables, emerging into a wider space where the cables all curved upwards, following the height of a shaft stuffed near to bursting with the shimmering belly of a single, small shuttle. converge, s his effort, engaging his gravity boots to push him even faster forward.

Wings pulsing, Caine pushes himself forward, reaching the ship just as it begins to rise. He scrabbles to find anything more solid to cling to as the ship speeds it rise. His fingers slide, and the forces of wind push his wings askew. Refusing to fail, he rapidly powers on his gravity boots, and begins to run. He pushes off against the cable laden walls, wings spread for balance, straining for lift, around and around, spiraling upward faster and faster. Closer and closer, he stretches out one hand, then leaps with all his remaining strength out into the center of the shaft, aiming for the belly of the small ship. He touches, close enough to note the silver chevron stamped into the closed grav beam portal.

His grip slips, and the winds circling around the shaft and the shift spin him like a crazed top. His head bounces against the wall of the shaft, and dazed, he tumbles. Just as he would plunge between the cables into the black goo below, his wings snap open, his hand snatches at the wall beside him, and he pulls up hard against the unyielding cables.

Looking up, the ship still rises along the shaft. With a mighty shake of his head, Caine surges upward, but it is a very long shaft. Wind buffets him from all sides. At last, he emerges from the shaft, alighting on its thick lip. Below him, rust colored clouds obscure the city levels. All around, massive structures pierce the grimy cloud layer, towering above him into space beyond. And above, a myriad of twinkling ships of every size, shape, and direction glitter in the cold sun, but if one of them contains Jupiter, he can not tell.

He kneels, his head lowers, and a frustrated growl of anguish escapes his lips.

An Aegis black shuttle cruises low, Stinger's face just visible behind the glass.


	24. Chapter 24

Jupiter moves slowly into the shuttle's main cabin, watching over her shoulder where the grav beam hatch is hissing closed. Regrets gnaw at her belly, resting in the slight frown on her lips. That moment she might have fled into his arms. So very close. Glancing up, a flush of guilt threatens to overtake her. Bob, laying Gemma's dislocated arm across his lap, returns the gaze with a tremulous smile. Kiza, sizing up the compliment of potential enemies, hair darkened to dull gold by the clinging damp, her face grown cold when she finds their beaten little band far out matched and over powered. Gemma's implacable face, molded into eternal serenity, seems to gauge the distances, the temper of the room, before her eyes rest expectantly on Jupiter. As much from forced bravado, Jupiter squares her shoulders, the tight frown twitching as she recognizes the pale, muted lighting, the deep red wood and gilded walls that arch and line the ovoid space.

"Take a seat, your Majesty." Felicia interrupts with a terse wave of her fingers and a bright, mocking smile while she points with the nose of her weapon at the curving expanse of plush, cream colored cushions. "It's a small ship. The trip is likely to get bumpy." Jupiter ignores her, and instantly regrets her bit of arrogance as the small craft lurches sideways as they slide sideways into a high speed lane of thousands of dazzling ships, sending Jupiter off her feet and falling with a wordless exclamation onto Bob, only to lurch again, swinging in a swift u-turn to slide into an opposite lane, tossing her clear across the chamber onto the opposite curve of cushions. With a sharp lift of her chin and a flick of her slick hair back over her shoulder, Jupiter pushes herself upright, a dull glowing blue smear marking her brief impact with the gleaming interior. Bracing herself with both palms firmly on the creamy couch, she cranes her head in an attempt to see beyond Felicia, Night, and the two heavies blocking the view into the pilot's cabin. With another lurch sideways, she catches a glimpse of a familiar profile sitting at the pilot's console.

"Why am I not surprised?" She murmurs, but Famulus, her two flanking guards, and Night's own crew all appear quite occupied by their escape from the planet's surface.

Kiza has also evaluated their situation, and she slips the illegal sheave into Jupiter's view, a question written across her face. Jupiter nods, and Kiza takes a few shaky steps across the unstable floor and sits beside her, sliding the sheave into her hands. Jupiter runs her wrist across the waiting sheave. She has just begun to immerse herself in her scanning when an image floating above the glassy face catches her by surprise.

"Holy crap!" she says, then realizing her mistake, she hurriedly shuts down sheave, too late.

"What is that?" Felicia hisses, fixing her weapon on Jupiter.

"This old thing?" Jupiter bluffs, holding the sheave lightly with feigned disregard. "I thought I'd start a diary."

"You should be thinking how you intend to endear yourself to the cause," Night sneers. He jerks his chin, motioning one of the heavies to take the sheave.

"Hey!" Jupiter barks, pulling the sheave behind her. "I need this. Unless you happen to have paper and a pen lying around."

"Paper?" Felicia hisses. "Pen? A trick, my Lord, surely these are weapons she seeks to use against you."

"I wish." Jupiter says under her breath. "You want me to be your token Entitled? Then I need something to write my rebellion poster girl acceptance speech."

"Rebellion?" A chorus of incredulous voices pipe up around Jupiter. Famulus swivels around, her perennial smug tenses, her widening eyes echoing their surprise. She half rises, stabbing Night with an accusing stare. Kiza's head shoots up, turning between Jupiter and Chickanery Night. Uncertain, but catching the mood of alarm, Bob's ear buds whiz, his mouth dropping in a little 'o'.

"Rebellion?" Kiza asks, rising slightly from where she has moments before claimed a spot. Jupiter offers her a grudging, shrugging, lopsided grin.

"That's what all this has been about?" Gemma asks, while Bob leans her somewhat upright. Kiza glances aside from Jupiter. She runs two fingers tenderly, sadly, across the silver wing upon her shoulder. Deep thoughts race and collide behind her eyes.

"Today will be recorded in history. The official uprising has begun." Mr. Night leans into the back cabin. "The Royal Families have lived off our backs for too long. After tonight, all that changes." His eyes gleam as he warms to his monologue. His magnanimous gesture encompasses the assemblage of splice around the cabin. "Our time has come." Not all of the crew are so enamored by his boast.

"I will do nothing which proves contrary to my Lord's interests." Famulus' hand rests lightly on the weapon at her hip.

"Then why are you here?" Felicia asks, her tone far too light, her own fingers stroking her weapon's black length. Some personal struggle lowers Famulus's gaze.

"I came at My Lord's behest." And she melts back into her seat, but her eyes remain wary.

"You, just keep flying. We're not clear of this yet," Chickanery snaps. Famulus swivels back to the screens, but not before, Jupiter takes note, she throws a mutinous glare over her shoulder.

"Did I hear him right?" Bob moans, his head swiveling between Jupiter, Night, and Gemma. "I've fallen into some sort of splice rebellion?"

"My duty is to thwart you with every and any means at my disposal," Gemma informs the group at large.

"A broken sim has the temerity to threaten me in my own domain?" Night sneers. Gemma gazes around at the numerous guns suddenly aimed in he direction, then down at her own shorn arm.

"This isn't the most propitious circumstance for arresting... anyone," she agrees mildly.

"How quickly your Aegis allies turn on you, Jupiter. If you ever thought to run to them, you should think again." Night gloats from and blocks the entrance to the pilot's cabin. "Would you put your trust in the very group created to maintain our perpetual servitude?" Jupiter's gaze carries more sorrow than any hint of betrayal as she looks across at Gemma.

"I don't create the laws. My model was designed to enforce them."

"You see? They exist only to protect the wealth and pride of entitleds."

"Ahem, I'm an entitled." Mr. Night snorts, and Felicia's titter is just shy of a giggle.

"In name only. Your behavior betrays you for the ignorant tersis you truly are."

"And that is meant to endear me to your cause, how? If you want my endorsement, then go away and let me think." A twitch begins in Night's left eye. She trapped him by his own machinations, and he resents it deeply. Distracted, Kiza keeps glancing between the pilot's cabin, and Gemma, her fists clutching and twisting the fabric of her pants.

"I will be reviewing anything you intend to say." And sniffing for any sign of weakness, he doesn't need to say. Felicia sidles up to stand over her shoulder as if to monitor her progress.

"I'm sure you will." Jupiter looks up slowly with a baleful glare at the mocking green eyes. "Once I've made my press conference, I imagine we'll have to go to ground for a while."

"We have a cell two sectors over." Felicia's mouth snaps shut at Night's stabbing glare just as the ship lurches to a sudden stop.

"Our agreement was to return Her Majesty to My Lord." Famulus stands to face Chicanery. The goons to either side of her swivel their weapons toward the pale man. The two heavies and Felicia respond in kind, half a dozen guns glinting their dangerous promise.

"I'm sure," Jupiter pipes in above their tense stances, "that Titus Abrasax would love to get his paws on me without Aegis protection. Probably turn me to try and redeem his own hide. Put those away," Jupiter continues," I know exactly where we should hide."

"I make the decisions here," Night snaps, and the nose of his gun tips her direction. Jupiter raises her chin, concentrating on her memory of all the condescending glares she had ever suffered from her time spent with entitleds.

"We go where I decide we go." An eerie silence falls within the ship. Mr. Night sneers, but his hand hesitates. Lifetimes of conditioning war against his dreams of power, until he crumples beneath Jupiter's cold stare.

"Do as her Majesty says." He turns away, and mutters. "For now."

"Famulus, get us out of here. Felicia, I said put that weapon away. Now, leave me to my work." Even Kiza turns her face away at that command. The ship resumes its hasty course, and Jupiter sits lightly, hiding how she clutches the ancient sheave with shaking hands.

Another sharp turn sets everyone bouncing in their seats, and Felicia dances sideways, leaving Jupiter to hider her stab of envy at the equanimity with which her captor regains her feet. Turning away, Jupiter leans low over the sheave, speaking aside. "Kiza," she whispers, "don't believe all that altruism crap." Kiza's eyes dart back to Jupiter. "I've danced with this rat before. He just wants access to nectar for himself. Visions of becoming the next tyrant king."

"Of course," Kiza agrees, cheeks reddening. She nods to herself, replacing any thought of her sorry place in the world with determined grit. With a mighty stretch, she stands.

"As a splice myself," hands on her hips, she turns to face Felicia, "I would be stupid not to find out more." Felicia cocks her head, looking Kiza up and down. "I'm a trained fighter. I could be useful. But, what's in it for me?" And Kiza, capturing Felicia's mercurial attention, deftly moves into her space, guiding her vision away from Jupiter. The ship lurches, bouncing Jupiter so hard she lands ingloriously on the floor.

"Holy crap!" With a resigned sigh, Jupiter crawls on hands and knees to sit between Gemma's and Bob's legs, speaking in a subdued hiss. "Captain Tsing sent you along to protect me, right?"

"Those are my current orders." Jupiter sighs with relief, hoping she can still salvage Gemma's help.

"I need to do something, and I can't see any way to do it without your help. If this lot finds out," she says, jabbing her head toward crowd gathered in and beside the fore cabin, "they'll kill me, no matter what I promised to deliver."

"If you were ordered to protect her," Bob joins their conspiratorial whispers, "doesn't that include keeping her from getting killed? And us too," he finishes with a final flourish.

"Will you help me, this time?" If Gemma could chew her lip in thought, or sigh with resignation, she might have. Instead she offers the slightest nod.

Jupiter makes one final glance where Kiza occupies their captors, then returns to her writing with a feverish determination.


	25. Chapter 25

"I was so close," Caine growls as he comes to stand before Captain Tsing. His head is low, his fist white with fury. His wings flare, then settle tightly against his shoulders.

"But we have a lead," Stinger interjects, nodding between Caine and the captain. Captain Tsing raises her chin to address them with an air of regret.

""I have received priority one orders that supersede chasing a single fugitive." Caine's head snaps up to stare at Captain Tsing in disbelief. The rest of the bridge crew busy themselves, seemingly unwilling to meet Caine's eyes. "However," she raises a finger, stalling Caine's obvious objections, "under Aegis directive F-24.5.7, I have commandeered a certain confiscated vessel which we currently have in tow. And," she continued above Caine and Stinger's shared glance, "I have the authority to remand this suspect," and she nods to Caine, a slight twinkle in her eyes, "to the custody of a marshall in good standing," and she nods to Stinger, "so that he may continue the previous investigation."

A grin splits through Stinger's disbelief, and he claps Caine across the back.

"Do you take personal responsibility for the conduct of this prisoner?"

"Again," Stinger says under his breath, then replies with proper formality, "Yes, captain."

"Then, Marshall Stinger Apini, I remand Caine Wise into your custody." She turns back to her crew.

"Thank you, Captain," Caine replies, accepting Tsing's formal nod of dismissal. The pair hurry to the grav beam chamber just as Phylo lifts his head from his console, and speaks.

"Captain, an unauthorized signal, on all channels." But the beam already has them, and they descend.


	26. Chapter 26

1.

Bowing low, the ever stoic gray feathered Malidictes backs slowly across the travertine tiled hall from Her Majesty Kalique's agitated presence. Her low, sleeveless gown of black lace catches the light with glittering gold and blue glints beneath the fury of her pacing. Her delicate lips are etched in a deep frown, and she flicks the image of Jupiter Jones from her screen with a dramatic flourish of her gold embraced arm.

2.

Titus Abrasax, redolent in deep navy velvet over black leather breeches, leans against a gilt cushion, throws back his head to expose the black with glowing blue light encircling his throat, and laughs.

3,

A lush riot of greens spreads into the distance below the balcony on which Morkenin rests her right palm. A cape of white feathers flutters over her tunic of ice green. Her face remains inscrutable as she stares over the rolling trees as if heeding only the calls of distant birds. But as she looks aside, a single tear glistens at the corner of her bright blue eye. A sim's cold voice interrupts from behind her.

"Your Majesty, the ship awaits your command."

4,

Captain Tsing squares her shoulders and turns back to the view screen. Only the tightness in her brown eyes belies her concern, though Phylo glances up, like the rest of the bridge crew, testing the mood.

"Surely there is more to the story," he offers, before returning hastily to his duty.

"There always is," Captain Tsing replies to herself.


	27. Chapter 27

Vladie's eyes widen and his lips purse as he begins a low, slow whistle. "Didn't think she had it in her." He angles his lean body fully upright, redolent in a new, crisp, white jacket and spotless white sneakers. "Hey!" he whines, tossing his hands in the air when Aleksa elbows him out of the way.

"Konechno net," she exclaims as the image of Jupiter, suspended within a blue and golden glow above the deep red wood and gilt console, fades to empty air. Shaking her head in denial, Aleksa takes a step backward, her hand coming to rest lightly over her mouth, brows furrowed, and bumps into Aknet with an apologetic glance. Her attention shifts at the sound of Stinger's sigh, while he rubs a hand along the back of his neck, whereupon Aleksa turns her despair on him when he moves to stand beside her. Suddenly, she stops, staring at his back. "You have wings! You have wings? Of course you do." She looks over her shoulder at Nino, and they shrug together, before she returns to her heated subject. "My daughter is not this rebel!"

"Of course not," Stinger replies in a soft, aching tone. One hand inches forward, as if he would offer reassurance, if she would accept it. Yet, a wounded expression haunts his eyes, for he, too, has previous family tied to Jupiter's fate.

"And you?" Aleksa rounds on Caine. He stops cold, lifting his head from where he had just been watching Jupiter's speech. Caught off guard, after a thoughtful pause he replies.

"Never. She told me.." but Aleksa leaps on those words.

"You spoke to her? You've seen her?" Nino lays a gentle hand on Aleksa's arm, her round face both sad and wise.

"Seen, yes," Caine agrees, then looks hard at his own clenched fists, "but I couldn't get close enough. I only caught two words." He pauses, looking to Stinger. "Trust me."

"Sir," a grumbling voice interjects within their argument.

"Trust you?" Nino asks sharply.

"Sir," the voice like gravel is more insistent.

"No," Caine nods where Her Majesty Jupiter's image had recently floated, "trust her."

"Sir!" Aknet demands, waving her clawed hand toward the communications console. "There is more." All eyes turn to the stoic, yet agitated, sargon. Dwarfed next to her leathery bulk, Vladie throws up his hands as if to state 'it isn't me!' "Another signal hidden in the message."

"Hidden how?" Caine almost leaps forward, eyes moving rapidly over the data. "It's a scrambler code." Data runs over his fingers like glowing water.

"An Abrasax signature," Stinger agrees, sliding up beside Caine to investigate. A grin blossoms across his face and he turns to Caine while patting the console of their Abrasax light ship. With a few flicks of his fingers, images hover where Jupiter had just moments before.

"A message from Jupiter?" Aleksa asks breathless, moving beside Stinger, to stand just beyond the breadth of his folded, bronze wings.

"I'm not seeing anything addressed to us," Caine responds, engrossed in his work at the console. Stinger leans over his shoulder, apini eyes rapid scanning the information flashing over the console.

"It seems to be a set of instructions. Not any design I recognize, just pieces."

"Schematics?" Homing in on the images, Nino ruffles a few feathers as she squeezes between the men.

"Like you can read them?" Vladie smirks from behind her. She turns around to swiftly box his ear.

"In Russia I worked airline assembly." Her voice carries a tone somewhere between pride and sorrow. Vladie rubs his ear with a scowl and a question.

"I thought you just made crazy astrology chart stuff." Nino moves as if to box his other ear, then simply grimaces at him, too intrigued by the cascade of images.

"Schematics of an airplane. Schematics of the universe. Not so different. But this, this is," she leans forward squinting, then tips her head sideways, admitting some confusion, "different."

"Why would she send this to us?" Aleksa wonders aloud.

"The sheave," Caine whispers. "She must have found it after all." Aleksa looks as if she wants to know what a 'sheave' might be, but Nino chatters on.

"Definitely a type of machine," Nino nods to herself.

"Can you make sense of these?" Stinger wonders over Nino's shoulder.

"This is a chamber. And that describes some kind of heavy shielding. What does it do?" Her entire attitude a question, she glances up between the men.

"Titus Abrasax claimed he didn't know," Caine's growled softly, "and Seraphi's journals never said, not the ones Jupiter had. What ever it is, Jupiter was moved by this knowledge changed Seraphi's life. She hunted those answers. One on every corner," he muses, recalling when last he and Jupiter met with Titus. Stinger looks to Caine, curious and excited.

"Do you think her Majesty expects us to build it?"

"With what?" Nino looks up askance. "You have super special hardware store nearby?"

"We look for Jupiter, not waste time with some toy." Aleksa shoots an accusing glance toward Vladie. Giving his head a slow, negative shake, Caine points at the schematics still filing passed. Her name on his lips sounds like hope.

"Jupiter wouldn't have sent this, hidden like that, without a really good reason."

"Hey," Vladie begins from the back. He glances at Aknet, commiserating their shared experience of being totally ignored. With a grandiose flourish, he thrusts himself in between Stinger and Aleksa, a slight shudder rocking his shoulders as he brushes against the dual sets of wings, before he turns pointedly to face Aleksa. "Remember? Shoes? Game controller? Eh? Eh?" Aleksa offers him her most dangerous stare, and Vladie folds like wet paper. "Aknet showed me how this ship has a thing that can make... anything!" He turns to Aknet for back up.

"This is a royal conveyance. It's fabricators are capable of creating most any item." Vladie claps his hands together with delight.

"Then what?" Jupiter looks away from Vladie's gleeful expression with a more morose one of her own. "We still don't know where Jupiter is, why she says such horrible things?"

"Why?" Caine replies, equally somber. "To save everyone's lives." He spares a reassuring glance for Stinger. "As for where," he takes Aleksa's hands in his, "I know who took her, and I recognize the shuttle they escaped on. I know where to start." Aleka nods, wanting to trust this strange, alien man with whom her daughter had placed her own trust.

"This is a friend?"

An uncomfortable looks comes to rest on Caine's face and he releases her hands with chagrin. "Not so much, well, maybe, we're not sure."

"Where else would she go? The universe is... too big."

"That speech has definitely narrowed her list of allies," Stinger agrees.

"No," Nino says with a firm head shake. "When we escaped Russia, I did not reach out to friends or allies." Nino leans forward, eyes locked with Aleksa. "I sought those who we once considered enemies." Aleksa pauses beneath Nino's intent gaze, remembering the bribes to black marketeers, the cargo container in which they and many others had hidden. Together, the sisters turn to Caine and Stinger with expectant faces.

Caine's reply is a terse, comprehending nod.


	28. Chapter 28

Out in the vastness of space, a speck of near black and glittering gold sporting a bright blue tail of fire, like a buzzing fly, encroaches on another ship. The skiff slows a safe distance away. By even the accounts of Abrasax' mighty vessels, this second ship is massive, bristling white and silver tipped with ebony. Whorls and spires extend like feathery quills, while six paired stabilizers float like an excessive array of crystalline wings. Gliding at the fore, a delicate neck reaching forward and lifting what must be the pilot's cabin far into the wash of stars. Portals glow like jewels embedded at the base of each quill. Whereas the Titus ship reminded Jupiter of the great green grasshoppers devouring their small back garden in late summer, this floated more like dandelion fluff down in a Spring breeze.

In the near distance, a trio of smaller, fleeter, dull black ships, sleek and yet bristling with armament, glide in a growing formation. Together, they carve space into a massive triangle of softly glowing blue which ripples, flows out, congeals together, a ship at each point, pulling the platform ever wider. The ethereal, feathery white ship slows as it pulls into range, angling toward the smaller, stern black vessels which continue to hold aloft the pool of blue, where it ripples gently like the surface of some pristine, fairy tale lake, just waiting for a swan princess to alight.

"That's Captain Tsing's cruiser," Kiza remarks. The oval confines of the planetary shuttle behind them, the assemblage now spreads a somewhat more comfortable distance around the more slightly more spacious cabin of Titus' skimmer. Famulus pilots once more, her twin guards standing with watchful tension while Knight and Felicia flank her chair. She shoots Night an accusing glance at the sight.

"What's this about? Knight? Explain."

"Aegis vessels?" Gemma perks up, twisting about on her perch strapped once more to Bob's back, in order to better view the screen. "That's a diplomatic conclave. That signifies a meeting which broaches no interruption." Famulus, minus the power of her own Lord, hesitates t the controls. Night nudges her with his elbow, creating a protective stir among her guards.

"Keep going. Even they," Night jerks his chin towards the white beast of a ship where it hangs in expectantly just beyond the Aegis vessels "don't dare interfere once Her Majesty expects me." All puffed up with himself, Felicia can barely control her finger's desire to preen his pale locks.

"Better and better. " But Jupiter does not sound as if she believes anything is 'better' as they glide beneath the mass of the ship, slip between crystal white protrusions that, upon closer inspection, could be turrets, or the giant noses of glittering guns, and up to a dark hole settled squarely at the base of the ship. "Servent's entrance?" she taunts Night's display of hubris, then sobers as dozens of those brilliant spikes, hollowed like giant canons, follow their trajectory with solemn malice.

Where Titus' clipper had resembled nothing so much as a playboy's over compensating cruise liner, and Kaliques alcazar an immense, luxurious country estate, Morkenin's ship resembled pictures Jupiter had seen of royal museums. For all she proclaimed that she eschewed the trappings of the living in favor or the chill found in the company of immortal sims, yet here was the clutter of an overly long life suffused with the boredom of eternity. As austere had been her palace atop the ice, here must be her true heart. Flanked by a parade of armed sims and royal guards, Jupiter cranes her neck to gawk at the glorious display. Every passage overflows with sculptures of any variety of beasts. Another is filled with rows of busts of children, elegant forms of dancing men and women, even a few chiseled lines of aged faces. As they follow the sim into a final chamber, paintings of a hundred alien skies, tapestries of heavy fabric portraying stories from ancient lives. And overhead, hanging with luminous clarity, the image of the pool of blue hung between its delicate needles of black against the flush of silent stars.

"Why are you here? Mr. Night?" The Empress Morkenin turns dangerously slow, her glittering blue eyes fixing on the albino splice. Diamond and peach pink pearls flash from within the recesses of her thick, black spreading over her shoulders. From beneath folded layers of midnight blue silken cloak, a sheath heavily embroidered with periwinkle blue-on-blue drapes low over her breasts, its train flowing behind her like a mountain lake. Wide bracelets of alternating diamonds and pearls wrap her arms and grace her long neck. Upon her words, the entourage of sims and silver skinned royal guard raise their collective weapons, aiming at the assemblage filing in behind Night. His bravado fails, and he falls to one knee.

"Your majesty, I come bearing gifts!" Chickanery exclaims, swinging an arm to encompass Jupiter and company. Bob's ears whir at the betrayal, while Kiza's eyes narrow and shifts into a fighter's stance to stand in front of Jupiter. Jupiter lays a gentle, restraining hand on her shoulder, swallows hard on the thick lump of fear threatening her throat, and steps forward. Schooling her voice to a confidence she doesn't quite feel, Jupiter rebukes Night, but her words are for Morkenin.

"Wrong. I bring you a gift," she says with equal emphasis on 'I' and 'you.'

"You!" Morkenin spits the word, stabbing Jupiter with her ice blue eyes. "Shall I kill you where you stand? You bring only revolution and death! This outcome was inevitable, tersis."

"Don't believe everything you see on TV," Jupiter replies drolly, shifting her weight to hide her nerves. Morkenin's cold regard flickers along Jupiter's spine, and she spares but a single moment to chide herself for the pointless reference. Brushing aside any further chance of making more fool of herself, she jumps straight to the point. She lifts the sheave. "This is why I'm here."

"Your speech?" Felicia scoffs, reaching out with a flourish as if to swipe the sheave from Jupiter's unsteady grip. Jupiter blocks with her elbow, flashing a momentary grin that Caine and Kiza's work was being put to good use. Stung by that fleeting image, she shoves the ancient sheave just beneath Morkenin's disdainful nose. Running her royal seal over the quiescent surface, the sheave glows its response.

"Look at it!" She commands, then more softly, "Just look." Morkenin scans the image hovering just above the flat glass face. Her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare with disgust.

"My unlamented great, great grandfather." She pushes the sheave back towards Jupiter with a scowl. "Destroyer of our family honor. Creator of the great gene plague."

"Wrong." Jupiter glances at the sheave herself, offering Morkenin a deeper look. "They lied." A tumble of other words collide behind Jupiter's eyes, but she stills them, allowing Morkenin the time to absorb the concept. Her terse words stoke the fires of Morkenin's longing, of a dignity robbed, of a family denied her, something Jupiter understood all too well, and had recognized the same in this, her enemy.

With a slow determination, Morkenin reaches out one strong, elegant hand, accepting the sheave.


	29. Chapter 29

Nino holds one glassy, many sided object aloft while she scowls at the enlarged schematic floating before her eyes. She squints in frustration, and rotates both image and object once more. Beyond her shoulder, Aleksa, bent over at an awkward angle, cocks her head, examining a glowing formula with brows furrowed with dismay, then throws up her hands.

" _Chert_ , I think I understand these, then I don't! Vladie, _stop_ ," she snaps as Vladie tries to snatch the mystery piece from Nino's outstretched palm. Beside her, Stinger's hand shoots out, grasping Vladie's wrist while his other wags an index finger in rebuke.

"Ok," Vladie whines, backing up. Stinger's proffered conspiratorial grin tugs at the corner's of Aleksa's own lips, and her mood lightens, even as she feels the heat rising up to flush her cheeks. She is relieved at the interruption of Caine's impatient growl. He slides his piercing gaze from the control console upward to the view screen glazed with streaks of starlight, then back down.

"We're running out of time."

"I don't see how we will complete this," Nino sighs, setting her piece in place among the growing objects of blue metal and hazy crystal. "This," and she stabs a finger at one line of the schematics, "specifies a control module to be seated, just so." She mimes laying an imaginary piece among the imaginary, glowing instructions.

"Why can't we just make it," Vladie pipes up.

" _Net_ ," Nino shakes her head. "I think this piece was so very common, the designer didn't believe its making needed explained."

"And then there's the equations which must be programmed." Aleksa pipes up stretching, before she becomes overly conscious of Stinger's eyes following her every move. He looks hurriedly away, chagrined. She thinks his cheeks, too, are rather pink. "I don't see how any of this would work. Reference to gravitational constant, here, and again here."

"Gravity," Nino nods sagely, stretching her arms over her head, then pointing to one of the diagrams, "like these force lines connecting everything. For a moment, her eyes grows misty, her voice husky with emotion. "Like gravity connecting everything, everyone, in the universe."

"What is the purpose?" Aknet turns from monitoring their course, looking over the myriad of half constructed parts. "Is it a new molecular disrupter?" Vladie perks up at the thought of an ultimate weapon, almost smacking his lips, before his face falls at Caine's reply.

"If it's a weapon, it's like nothing I've seen before." He moves around Aknet and Vladie, coming to stand and read over Stinger's shoulder. "But you said it mentions disintegration, so maybe? What could mark Seraphi Abrasax for death?"

"It does mention cells quite a few times." Stinger reads swiftly through the documents yet again. "Transmutation? But I think it is something totally different."

"Than what?" Aleksa pauses from her work to glance at him, intrigued by the hope in his voice.

"I can't be certain. Not yet." His wings rustle briefly across his back, capturing the room's attention.

"Something," Caine says low, his eyes glittering with an intensity that foretold intent, or danger, "that could change everything?"

Stinger looks up from beneath his brows, grinning from ear to ear, and nods.


	30. Chapter 30

Morkenin paces, sheave in hand, one finger resting gently upon her lips in an unaccustomed gesture of contemplation.

"I intended to grace your Majesty these prisoners..." Night begins in his most obsequious tone.

"Shut up," Jupiter hisses, disrupting his interruption of Morkenin's discovery.

"Never," he whips around on her, ready to retaliate her tone in kind.

"Yes," Morkenin says sidelong, "as she said." Night's mouth snaps shut, and he bows even as he glares at Jupiter.

"Of course, your Majesties." His voice drips with barely concealed irony, his sense of control over the situation slipping away. He back slowly, as if aiming for the shadows, but even so occupied, Morkenin flicks a finger to her attendant sims, and the step behind him, blocking any thought he might have of quick escape. Morkenin turns, a question almost blossoming on her face, when another voice addresses her from within. Balancing the sheave in her palm, as if balancing some delicate future, she lifts her free hand, and traces the tiny node along her neck.

"Your Majesty," the calm, steady voice of a distant sim whispers along the communication nub nested against her neck, "the Aegis ships have completed the neutral triatory. They await your review and signal of approval."

"The Abrasax has yet to arrive," Morkenin replies to the air, then raises her head with something akin to a long suffering sigh. "Predictable, allowing the the insecurities of youth to lead one down the path of such vain abuses of newfound power. Yet, I do note another ship's presence." Morkenin remarks with rising chill, responding to some star map only she can see.

"A medium class lightship," explains the distant voice, "not registered to her Majesty, Kalique Abrasax, Interim First Prime of the House Abrasax."

"Battle capable?" she asks rapidly, long accustomed to evaluating danger.

"Light armament only." She relaxes with a slight bob of her shoulders.

"A luxury yacht? Registered to whom?"

"His late Majesty, the lamented Balem Abrasax." With one lift of her eyebrow, Morkenin turns to Mr. Night where he remains with his head slightly bowed. Felicia squirms beneath the royal's examination.

"Balem is it?"

"Caine!" Jupiter whispers under her breath even as Morkenin's lips twist ruefully. Foregoing her attempted royal attitude, "My family!" Morkenin turns a baleful eye to Jupiter's outburst. "Please, let me speak to them!"

"The lycantant?" Night mutters, his eyes red with suppressed fury. "Will I ever be free of this thorn? I should have ripped his throat out along with that buffoon of an entitled."

"What?" Jupiter stops and stares, turning what she thinks she just heard over in her mind. After the momentary silence, Night shivers, realizing what cat he just let out of the bag. "Ripped his throat? Back there, you said," she mulled over her words, "blanking works on splices, too." Her eyes widen with shock and growing fury. "You did it!"

"You framed Caine," Gemma swiveled around on Bob's back to add. Kiza's face first fell, then tightened with a savage glee.

"Caine will have your heart for this," she whispers. Jupiter cannot help but ask.

"Why?" Night demures an answer, but Morkenin fills the emptiness.

"What better way to play the mighty Abrasax heirs against one another?" Morkenin offers them a feral grin. "A trick you learned from me, I think. Following all possible lineages, testing any potential offspring. The splice thinks to play a long game."

Chickanery might say more, might have defended or attacked, but even as he formulates some slippery reply, a chime echoes through the elegant receiving chamber.

Many a head snaps up, Morkenin, Jupiter, Kiza, Night.

Even as the blue pool begins to sputter and fade to black while the Aegis ships attempt to disengage, with a slide of her finger along her neck, Morkenin rapidly switches the view out into the spray of stars to where what was, just seconds before, empty space. Dozens of blue lights flare as ships portal nearby, then fade beneath their cloaking shields. The view shifts, more blue flares, and shifts again. They are surrounded.

"An ill advised attack. Friends of yours?" Morkenin asks with a sidelong glower to hide the thrill of fear.

"Not mine," Jupiter denies strongly, pointing to the sheave. "I came to you because of that, nothing else."

"You did make that address," Bob reminds her.

"Not now Bob," Kiza pops a hand over his mouth, eyes on view of the growing rebel forces.

Her uninvited guests instantly ignored, Morkenin barks instructions.

"Release the defensive field. Warm the canons. Prep life pods."

Somewhere, everywhere, from the ship, a vibration, a thrumming, indicates a mighty movement. From both sides of the now bristling celestial swan, a thick black haze streams forth, spreading like oil, flowing and surrounding the white ship in a hazy gray cocoon. Jupiter and Kiza pass each other a questioning glance.

"War hammers?" Night remarks with a mix of anticipation, concern, and relief. Anticipation, because this is the culmination of his efforts at rebellion, after all. Concern, because he is currently aboard an enemy target. Relief, because he believes in the might of a field of war hammers to protect them. Few pilots had the crazy skill of Stinger Apini, and the determination of Cain Wise, after all. But there was the matter of the second, far less protected entitled ship.

"My family is out there!" She rounds on Night. "Call them off!" But Night glances again at the protective field, and offers Jupiter only his most sly voice.

"If only I could reach them," he smirks. "But her Majesty has blocked all my communications, as surely as she confiscated our weapons." Jupiter can only gape as he turns back to the view hanging above them, his eyes alight as blue bursts begin to flare.

"Let them in!" Jupiter beseeches Morkenin. When she does not respond, lost in her own preparations, Jupiter leaps forward, grasping her arm, heedless of the multiple weapons instantly aimed in her direction, she forces Morkenin's attention. "Please, you must help them!"

"Because of this?" Morkenin lifts the sheave, considering. Jupiter's face falls, her eyes pleading, her hands clasped before her in dread. Morkenin turns back, speaking softly over her shoulder. "I've relayed coordinates. That's all I can do. The rest is up to them."


End file.
